The Binding Of Isaac

Platform: Windows & Mac OS X (Steam)

Developped by: Edmund McMillen & Florian Himsl

Published: 28 September 2011

Help little Isaac find a way to hide from his fundamentalist christian mom who wants to kill her son in order to proof her devotion to God. This indie RPGesque game leads you through a handful of levels in Isaac’s basement with a lot of ugly-faced enemies to kill, but beware! Despite the childlike graphics the game itself is pretty disgusting considering the cruel and scary hurdles little Isaac must overcome to survive and, YUCK, the bosses at each level end get scarier and more repulsive.

If the graphics look familiar to you, don’t be surprised. “The Binding of Isaac” is a side project of Team Meat’s (Super Meat Boy) Edmund McMillen who developped the game along with Florian Himsl. The soundtrack was composed by Danny Baranowski, who also contributed the O.S.T. in Super Meat Boy.

If you’re into heartless and gruesome game action mixed with simple gameplay and adorable graphics (oh the irony) this game is most definitely worth a try.

Available for 5,98 € on Steam and considering that indie developers do not solely live of love and tons of coffee, I summon all of you to support indie games as much as possible.

Lebanon

Written and directed by: Samuel Maoz

Starring: Yoav Donat, Itay Tiran and Oshri Cohen

Release date: 15th October 2009

“Man is steel. The tank is only iron.”

Little did I know about the First Lebanon War and after watching this movie, I don’t want to know much more about it because war is something disturbing that agitates me. After the latest happenings in Libya and the “murder” of Muammar Gaddafi, I felt the sudden urge to watch this movie; not because it’s got something to do with the libyan “revolution”, but I was saddened that once again the bad guy got killed before his trial could take place with Gaddafi having the possibility of revealing a few inconvenient truths and facts about our western countries, but that is not going to happen now.

What’s it got to do with “Lebanon”? Well, I center my thesis on the failure of diplomacy and democracy. When you kill a fascist leader before he has his trial to which he may explain his points of view that’s a throwback in diplomacy and democracy. Because one has to listen and accept (not tolerate) an “asshole’s” opinion, no matter if it corresponds to our ideals or not. And when you start a war against a neighbour country, like in the movie, that is a throwback as well in both aforementioned points.

Last but not least, how many men had to pay with their lives for something they stood for or not? In our society, we tend to only recognize facts or numbers and forget the cruelty and barbarity of a war. We’re successfully stunned by media coverage and are barely shocked when seeing pictures of a dead fascist leader soaked up in blood. We’ve all become comfortably numb and that’s why this movie matters to me and this is why I drew parallels to the libyan revolution and “Lebanon”.

“Lebanon” is the story of Israeli paratroopers and a lone tank invading southern Lebanon on 6 June 1982. The tank’s crew consists of Assi, Hertzel, Shmulik and Yigal who follow orders of their Commander Gamil to invade a small city and head towards a place they call Saint Tropez.

The whole mission turns into a disaster and the troop will land in some kind of ambush in an apparent dead end, with the tank being seriously damaged by a bazooka.

The whole action in the movie is centered on the insides of the tank with a few crosshair shots to the outside world. What you get to see, as a spectator, is the raw and perishing atmosphere of a war zone. You can smell the anxiety of each soldier and you suffer a lot throughout the whole movie, feeling more and more miserable with each bullet being shot and with every single blood drained body lying on the floor. One can almost feel the claustrophobia prevailing inside the tank, that is in a deplorable state after the bazooka strike and you don’t know if you should sympathize or pity the crew in it’s desperation with Assi getting insane by the end of the movie as the whole situation becomes more hopeless with each passing minute.

I was absolutely speechless after having watched “Lebanon” as it is a gut-wrenching and merciless experience. It reflects the cruelty and reality of war perfectly and gives the spectator the right insight into something he may have not experienced or imagined yet. For most of us we simply do not know what war is.

Sometimes we do care too little about what is happening around us, in some exotic countries we can barely spell. Perhaps we’re just trying to avoid some inconvenient truths as well? Let this movie open your eyes a little.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTvYM-hyFSk]



Terror Firmer


First of all a big Fuck You to the censorship in art and mainly to the German paranoid idea of cutting every horror / splatter flick. You guys have no leitmotif you are following and you have no idea what you are doing to the art. What the hell is the point in censoring adult horror movies. It is like cutting out the fuck scenes from a porno flick, it simply doesn´t make any sense. Authorities think that a funny Troma movie can be harmful to children and adults but have no scruple of showing a film of Saddam Hussein‘s execution, a blood-covered Gaddafi with a bullet in his head, real-time war scenes etc etc. Just make the movies not available for children (I think that should be part of the common sense) but stop killing art. Amen!

After the “Toxic Avenger” review, I promised Lloyd Kaufman writing something about his most personal movie “Terror Firmer“. So what can be said?! I think that this flick, which was released in 1999, is 100% pure tromatic madness. The story, inspired by Kaufman‘s book “All I Know About Filmmaking I Learned From the Toxic Avenger”, is kept simple and basically can be described as a Troma flick in a Troma flick.

Uncle Lloydie himself plays a blind (!!) director, named Larry Benjamin, who tries to direct a new part of the “Toxic Avenger” series. Sounds pretty easy?! Well it isn’t, because the whole film crew is a bunch of sex addicted hillbillies who are chased and killed by a crazy, “sexy” serial killer. While the movie consists most of the time of perverted, grotesque, brainless, gory and hilarious pictures, the story centers more and more on the love triangle between the production assistant Jennifer, the  boom operator Casey and the special effects operator Jerry.

“Terror Firmer” is definitely no mainstream movie but it manages doing something a lot of mainstream movies fail in. It is pure entertainment and that for nearly two hours. Lloyd Kaufman accomplishes this by falling back on the really dark, weird and even sometimes disgusting Troma bad taste. You shouldn´t expect anything more than a masterpiece of violence and fun. What I really appreciate is the overacting of the actors, who seem really enjoying doing this movie. Furthermore I really enjoyed the excessive and completely surrealistic and random use of viscera, blood, vomit and other egestas, which even tops most of the other Troma releases.

If you think now that “Terror” Firmer” is only build up on extreme violence based on a fucked up story with a killing hermaphrodite whose father is a deformed and dismembered Ron Jeremy (!!!), I can calm you down. In order to keep the flick interesting for everyone, Kaufman has put exorbitant amounts of sex scenes, tits and nudity into this movie too.

Finally, I think I should end the review best by quoting Kaufman himself, as he said: “I take it very seriously. I don’t take myself seriously but I take making movies very, very seriously (…)”. This quotation resumes 100% what “Terror Firmer” and Troma are all about.

P.s. Lemmy kicks ass!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBA1fNRx0Wk]
Links to follow:
Troma

Lloyd Kaufman


Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote

Everyone remembers his favorite childhood-cartoon(s). I grew up in the nineties and we watched a lot of them but my Top 5 were/are most definitely: 5. Scooby-Doo: what the fuck were they thinking of doing 2 shitty movies out of this great cartoon?! 4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: when I try to think back I really don’t remember that much from the series. I have to check them out again and oh yes, I always was Leonardo! 3. Ghostbusters: this American animation was produced and released AFTER the great Ghostbusters movie from 1984. This is probably one of my favorite franchises ever! 2. The old Tom and Jerry series. I think I don’t have to introduce this one. But my all-time favorite is the incredible 1. Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

Both figures were invented by Chuck Jones, they started in 2 Warner Bros. Productions and were first aired in 1949 and 1952. What I love(d) the most about this series was its famous characteristic traits and distinguished feature: The short animations, with an average runtime of 6-7 minutes, based on a simple and never changing storyline, the exaggerated violence and actions (which even for a cartoon exceeded the boundaries of common sense and physical laws) made this series quite unique and so precious for me.

The failing of Coyote’s  high tech and sophisticated traps and his own incompetence were always marked by “hurting” himself while falling down a huge cliff (it never was the Road Runner who “hurt” Wile E.). Everyone that has seen this cartoon has, though Wile E. was or should have been the villain, at some point secretly wished that this clumsy but likebale being should catch the arrogant and bitchy bird.

Furthermore I’m NOT going to do a social-psychological analysis of the violence in cartoons and the possible impact on the (young) audience’s social development and behaviour but as the subject of medial violence becomes more and more important nowadays, I decided to add, very briefly, a few personal thoughts.

First of all I think that the perception, reception, the understanding and processing of the television and it’s broadcasted comics differ primarily from the actual infant development. I won’t go too deep now (maybe I’m going to write a post based on this particular subject later on) but very young children don’t understand that they are shown pictures. Little children believe that the people, animals etc are actually living in the television and it often happens that they try to communicate with them. I remember one specific happening where I was trying to speak with a magician on the Luxembourgish TV channel (even adult people, mainly men, sometimes try to communicate with soccer players during a match but that’s a different story ^^).

When young children get older and the growth of personal identity gets more and more important they are facing inevitable and vitally significant developmental tasks and social problems and that’s where imagination gains importance. Children sample connections between their self and reality, which then are applied to the real world, or not. I think with the increasing development of a child, there normally is a better “understanding” of the television. Nevertheless this understanding often differs from the grownups. I’ll try to make this clear with the example of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Most of the adults only see never ending sequences of nonesene physical brutality. I think that this brutality doesn’t play a role in children’s viewing. I even would go further and say that they wouldn’t describe this cartoon as violent, because nobody really got hurt, no blood was shown and in the end everything turned into good. Children pay more attention to the different roles of the characters because “roles” become more an more important in their real-life.

I claim that Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote is a very special and maybe unique cartoon. In most other animations, the young children identify with the “weak”, small character, who mostly becomes a hero because he “fights” or deals with the strong “bad” one (for example: Tom and Jerry). In my particular example children tend to sympathise with the coyote. Wile E. is probably the first anti-hero most children (of my generation) have ever seen or heard of. The Road Runner only plays a “passive” role without any clear character building which makes it difficult for children to relate to.

I want to stop here by reminding that these are only a few unelaborated personal opinions and that I just scratched the surface of this waste subject. Back to topic: Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote makes so much fun and I am still laughing at it, which is a good sign and shows that deep inside I am still a young boy!



Midnight – Farewell To Hell


Midnight‘s “Farewell to Hell” is a unique, true, authentic, raw, primitive, Venom/Hellhammer-esque 1st wave Black Metal Ep with Motörhead, dirty rock and roll and oldschool Punk influences!

This is pure evil and really cool!

Buy the record!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvENCRNKCQo]
P.s. Be prepared for their first full-lenght record: Satanic Royalty. Click me for more information

Tim Hecker – Ravedeath, 1972 & Dropped Pianos

For the last months I unfolded a passion for a music genre that I’d like to call abstract music. Most people tend to define this genre as ambient / drone / whatever, but I prefer to rely on my own definitions of music instead of blindly following trends and assuming new tags on last.fm as my own, for instance.

Montreal based musician and producer Tim Hecker suits the definition of abstract music very well. He’s been the first artist who introduced me to the ambient / drone genre apart from Southern Lord’s finest; Sunn o))).

I remember the time I first listened to his album “Harmony In Ultraviolet” and I was stunned, in a pleasant way. Never had I heard something like that before and it was a thrilling experience to me.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUpA8R01d50?rel=0]

Ravedeath, 1972 follows his “classical” songwriting, if this can be called so. Multilayered soundscapes chased through all possible effects giving enough room to the listener to sink in an imaginary dream world and cancel contact with the here and now. Hecker lifts the sound of conventional instruments to a whole new level and to me he is one of the big players in the ambient league. Pianos, organs, guitars; all mixed and modified to a pleasant yet challenging listening experience; where you do not know if it is a violin or perhaps a saxophone you’re hearing. And you just couldn’t care less, because you’re already sucked into the whirl of this work of art. And that’s what makes this album so special. The songs can wrap you like a warm veil and in another instant hit you on the forehead and make you feel miserably for what you are.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K33Ka4yauQ?rel=0]

Dropped Pianos is the complete opposite of Ravedeath, 1972. I could interpret this album as an homage to the piano, but it’s more. There’s more to it than just a few chords randomly hitten with a lot of hall. It’s the saddening, melancholic undertone of the so called “sketches” which makes this album worth listening to. The ethereal acoustic of the piano gives this album a more organic note, a more conventional approach to “ordinary” music than Ravedeath does, so I can fully recommend Dropped Pianos to all the people who have never heard of ambient / drone music before. It’s easier to digest but at the same time a challenge, because Dropped Pianos could also be described as the soundtrack of the apocalypse. Burning bridges and the metal twisting towards the fiery skyline, people desperately running for shelter and looking for their beloved ones; everything’s held with the eye of a voyeuristic camera in slow-motion. Dropped Pianos is a slow paced listening experience in unsurpassable intimate beauty.

In a society in which musical trends wither within the blink of an eye, new bands having a raison d’être for their hip moment and old bands losing credibility for not evolving during their careers, Tim Hecker is some sort of hero to me. His music does not follow any conventions and is the antithesis to trends and hipsterism.

Who needs arpeggio-laden synths, time signatures, people with fancy Hitler hairdos and trend whores when there’s one man with a laptop who unleashes the fury with minimalism as a big fuck you to the (trends) establishment?

Conclusion: The soundtrack for this autumn, most definitely! Thank you for everything Tim.

Death From Above 1979 – You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine


2004. Two men. One on bass guitar. One on drums. Result: pure insanity. In case you don’t own this album yet then it’s about time! A legal drug you can purchase in every record shop that has the guts to sell this. Or the internet, source of information, stupidity and craziness.

Turn It Out, threatening sounds, and before you realize it You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine has you in the headlock and will throw you through the whole room for the next 35 minutes. And you know what? You like it! You want it to happen! You don’t want it to stop! Inhuman bass guitar violation, aggressive lyrics, no pause, Romantic Rights, “I DON’T NEED YOU, I WANT YOU”, obey! No pause, Going Steady, your head bangs despite the headlock, torture, that bass, pure pleasure, that chorus!

The energy that Jesse Keeler and Sebastien Grainger are able to produce, being just two guys, is just enormous. This is like the danceable kick-ass rock music that makes you sweat and dance in a small cave, undergoing more sweaty and stinky bodily contact than you’ve ever had in your life, and you wouldn’t think of any better place to be, not at all! The album is already in its middle part but your mouth is still wide open. Death From Above 1979 are no computer band, they aren’t clean, and thank god for that. They feel pure and honest when they come around to vandalize your home. Always brutal, full of pressure and sexy.

It sometimes feels like someone paired the filthy Motörhead sound with sexy rock’n’roll à la Eagles of Death Metal. Bass ravishment at its best, you hear it, you feel pity for it, but you certainly don’t want it to be released, au contraire. In case you’ve enjoyed Little Girl as some kind of breathing spell, Cold War will bring you back to reality before the title song knocks you out of your boots. Forget about them. This monster will be in bed right next to you when you wake up, smoking your underpants during Sexy Results, which sounds like pure rock disco. You will beg for the next round.

If there won’t be any more doping substances in this world, then this will be the new stuff!

Recommendations: Tracks 1 to 11.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4siXlLOSW0]

Mayhem – Life Eternal


First things first. I have been listening to Black Metal for a couple of years now, but I don’t give a damn about any kind of scene or about being trve, kvlt, frostbitten or whatever else there is. I do not care about Varg Vikernes’ political views or his world outlook. I do not support fucking church burnings (even though I think that religions are brainwashing institutions which detain people from free-thinking) or stupid murders. I am not a close-minded idiot who rejects everything but Black Metal but damn I love this crazy shit from the early 90ies.

Let’s switch over to the record now. Life Eternal is an EP which contains rough mixes of 5 songs from the great De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas record, which was released back in 1994. After Euronymous was killed, Attila lost all contact with Mayhem and De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas became a bestseller. The only “souvenir” the vocalist had from these times were the 5 rough songs he recorded for himself in the studio. Attila claims that these songs, even nowadays, always bring back strong and dark emotions and that he wants to share his feelings with the fans. After years of fighting for the rights of the record, he released this 3,000-copy limited A5 digipack EP in 2009, in co-operation with Season of Mist and his own label.

What makes this EP so special? There are a few things. First of all it’s the whole getup. The record doesn’t only come in a nice A5 format, it also includes 10 stickers, very rare or even unreleased pictures, letters and lyric sheets. The most interesting about the album are Attila’s vocal performances. He probably already had an idea of how the vocals should sound, nevertheless he tried out different styles and singing techniques in order to decide which one suited best for the different songs and overall atmosphere. It is not always that easy to hear differences between the songs from De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and the “original” but if you sit down and listen carefully you make clear distinctions.

Talking about differences you notice that Hellhammer’s drums on the Life Eternal EP are much more passive and in the background. I personally don’t like drums which are too present. This record also contains a Funeral Fog drum intro, which was cut out later on the “official” release. Looking at the guitars, I come to a similar conclusion. I like the guitars on the EP more, they are grungier and harsher, which support and underline and even perfect the extreme dark and dissonant atmosphere of Mayhem‘s sound and music.

People often tend to say that the fact of being a legend is larger than Mayhem’s musical accomplishments. With albums like De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, Mayhem – Live In Leipzig and Life Eternal, they easily convince us of the opposite. This record is pure evil and I don’t care if this release has been put out to profit from the band’s popularity or not. I personally think that Life Eternal is one of the best and most interesting records in the history of the band.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY9zhTlaMW0]