Michael Rooker is a badass!

In celebration of Michael Rooker making a totally unexpected guest appearance on the second episode of The Walking Dead, and delivering another great nutter performance, let's take a look at the Top 5 Michael Rooker performances and movies throughout his career:

5. Hal Tucker - Cliffhanger

You'd be pissed too if Stallone let your lady plummet to her death, and Rooker does a great job here of giving Stallone plenty of evils and being an all around bad ass while still being the good guy. 

4. Keith Michaels - Keys to Tulsa

Now we're getting a little crazy. How crazy? How about put some guns to the side of your head crazy. While it's not the greatest movie of all time, and Rooker doesn't have a huge role, this is the kind of off-kilter performance you expect from the great man. A little crazy, a little scary, the friend you like but you're always on your toes around coz you never know when he's gonna snap.

3. Svenning - Mallrats

Ahh who will ever forget the infamous chocolate covered pretzel. Rooker hams it up big time in Kevin Smith's  Mallrats with his insanity always at near boiling point. This is Rooker doing Rooker like Jack Nicholson does Jack Nicholson in..almost every single movie he ever does, but there's nothing wrong with that.

2. Frank Bailey - Mississippi Burning

Now we're onto totally scary Michael Rooker. This is a powerhouse and shit-scary performance from Rooker who uses his physical presence and booming voice to make Ed Norton in American History X look like a total pussy. A great movie and great work from Rooker.

1. Henry - Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

Well there's no doubt this would be number 1 as this is simply one of the greatest movies of all time, let alone the best Rooker performance. This is brutal, chilling, unrelenting and unflinching. The kind of one-in-a-million performance which lives in infamy. This surpasses great films like Chopper and Man Bites Dog in their portrail of one mans insanity. If you have somehow missed this movie, see it now!

Hip-hop awesomeness

This is from the new Celph Titled album Nineteen Ninety Now, which I have yet to review but this is an awesome clip and a great beat too. Celph always brings it and R.A is mental as usual.

It's here! The Walking Dead Series Premiere

Finally!! I only heard about this series a couple of months ago but I've been eagerly anticipating it ever since. As a comic book fan, I am ashamed to admit that I've never actually read the series except for a couple of random issues. It's one of those series I heard about after quite a few issues had already come out, so I added it to my list of titles to read it TPB format. Alas, I've still yet to get around to it. Despite that I couldn't wait to see this series and it has not disappointed. 

In the feature-length series premiere we are introduced to a zombie infested world primarily through the eyes of a policeman Rick Grimes as he awakes in hospital from a gunshot wound sustained in the line of duty. As he comes to, he begins to see a world not as how he last remembered it and slowly the reality of the situation comes to light. Along the way we meet other survivors, a father and son team who are already quite familiar with the undead situation and have been surviving for quite some time. There is also an outpost of survivors including Rick's partner, who we first meet at the beginning of the situation. There's an interesting situation with these survivors which I won't spoil but it certainly adds a lot of weight and intrigue to the storyline. 

And this is where the first episode of this series really succeeds. There is a great amount of depth to the characters and quite a lot of emotion to their situations, and already the plot twists and turns are being layered and setup nicely. There's definitely some nice gore, and a great bleak look to the show, but it's the characters that this series looks to be all about the masterful way in which they are portrayed and given real depth is what will keep this show going. 

Let me know what you guys think. I cannot wait for the next episode!

A movie you should see - Rec

WOW! I've just finished watching this and I'm still breathless. What a great movie. Now I'm guessing most of you would have already seen this, I'm more than a little late in getting around to this but boy am I glad I finally did. What a movie. Just in case there is someone out there who hasn't seen it, let's keep the synopsis simple. A TV \crew filming a day in the life story about firemen follow them out to an apartment where a lady was heard screaming. Let's just say there's some weird shit going on in that building. It's filmed in the handheld style which has proved so effective for low budget films and it's used to great effect here. The atmosphere is overwhelmingly claustrophobic and it does a great job of keeping you on the edge of your seat. The sound is great as well. This would be a great movie to experience in the cinema or on a home theatre setup. It's a short movie, with little story or characterisation, and you could argue that it isn't that original either, but the atmosphere, and unsettling feeling this movie creates is brilliant. There are some genuine jump out of your seat moments and the entire experience is thrilling. One of the best horror movies I've seen in a long time and so highly recommended. This has been remade for American audiences as Quarantine, which personally I can't even be bothered to see because I don't see the point, but do let me know if you feel I should.

A movie you should see - Cell 211

This is an awesome movie coming out of Spain with a very cool premise. A new prison guard Juan, on the first day of the job gets caught in a prison riot. Abandoned by his colleagues, he has to pretend to be a prisoner to survive the riot. This film is great at sucking you into the story and keeping you on the edge of your seat as to what is going to happen next and how Juan is going to keep up the charade. See he's a bit of a pretty boy, and the other guys are..well...hardened prisoners. 

That ugly fella on the cover, he's the instigator of the riot, and a total bad ass. But he's also a bit of a thinker. He's instigated this riot not for the hell of it, but to get better conditioners for all the prisoners. He sees something in Juan and pretty much appoints him as his right hand man. There's a bit of Stockholm Syndrome going on here as the longer Juan spends with these guys, especially the main man Malamadre, the more he becomes one of them. That isn't helped by the fact that the guys on the outside, the guards and the suits running the prison, are all shown to be a bit slimy really.

This movie is great because it's the antithesis of today's vapid Hollywood movies. There's no rap-rock soundtrack while the prisoners riot, there's no cameos from some cult actor hamming it up, there's no overly dramatic moralising. It's all done very well done while still having some cool prison movie moments as well as casting a sympathetic light on the prisoners while critising the administration without going over the top. It all builds to a massive climax that satisfies. I can't recommend this movie enough. Check it out.

New Hip Hop shit

Here is an awesome new video from the recent Vinnie Paz solo album. As usual, R.A the Rugged Man is on fire.

A movie you should see - Rampage

I've read a lot of stuff about Uwe Boll on the Internet. A lot of hate, mocking, the usual stuff when the Internet hordes latch onto something. Now, I've never actually seen one of his movies so I've always reserved judgement, and felt a little left out in being able to join in on the hate. I went into seeing this movie without knowing it was a Uwe Boll film at first, it was the premise for this movie that had me immediately hooked. A young man dons a suit of armour and goes on a killing spree. Sweet! This could be interesting, as opposed to say, annoying rich white people adopt young black man blah blah blah *barf*....excuse me.... Seeing it was a Uwe Boll movie had me even more excited, finally a chance to find out for myself. Now it's one thing to have an interesting premise, but it's all in the execution, so the speak....

And this movie is quite well done. It's shot in a documentrary like style, doing a good job of portraying the bleakness and isolation of growing up in a middle of nowhere small American town. The first half of the movie establishes everything. The main character, an angry young man, angry at what, he's probably not sure himself. Parents want him out of the house, boss at a dead end job is a jerk, the small town is getting to him. The acting here is solid, and so is the dialogue. The scene at the fast food restaurant is particularly well executed. His best friend is an interesting character here too as they are essentially two sides of the same coin. They share similar

The second half of the movie is the killing spree. Here the look is like in Heat, shaky camera and all. The killing isn't glorified. It's just shown for what it is in a very cold detached style. There's a good scene here where he enters a bingo hall and none of the old farts even bat an eyelid until he interrupts their game. However perhaps the scene where he guns down a bunch of beauty queens at a hair salon is a little OTT and trying to pander to the angry young men watching this film.

All in all though, this is a very good movie. There's a real sense of nihilism permeating throughout the film, it's all executed tightly. Good job Uwe Boll.

It's alive!

I have given birth to something....digital.

Fear not my fellow cyber traveler. These are not the ramblings of a raving mad man.  Mostly this is going to cover movies, tv, music, books, comics, video games, technology, the Internet and the like. Whatever I find interesting and feel like discussing.