22 jayplay.
thursday, august 28. 2003
NOWPLAYING
reviews in brief.
MUSIC
ALIEN ANT FARM
TRUANT
RELEASED: AUGUST 19.2003
was made obvious, especially in 2001, when hard rock group Alien Ant Farm released a very energetic and successful over of Michael Jackson's smooth Criminal, that they were not afraid to experiment. two years later, with their new album truANT, AAF continues to push the proverbial creative envelope and thrill fans yet again. Guitar player Terry Corso says of their new release, "There's plenty of hard stuff, but there's also other stuff that's mellow, or has a different kind of groove. Showing off our versatility was really important to us. We wanted the fans to see that we've grown musically."
Part of that growth includes a willingness to experiment with many styles of music. Drummer Mike Cosgrove says, "We've always been into different kinds of music, but it's harder to make a statement about that when you're just coming up. There are so many different sides to this band. We're not really metal, we're not really punk, we're not really reggae, Latin, jazz or pop—we're a little bit of all those things." But AAF's natural tendency for trying something different isn't just limited to their music.
When pondering what kind of video to shoot for their captivating new single "These Days," the band decided to do something a little "raw" says front man Dryden Mitchell. The end result is AAF playing with out a permit, atop a Los Angeles building. Conveniently enough, they are located across the street from the red-carpet event, the BET Awards. Digital cameras capture a myriad of facial expressions ranging from pure horror to unabashed joy from surprised on lookers which is definitely sure to be classic music video material. However, almost over a year ago, the band was not thinking a record was even possible. While
Alien Ant Farm
touring in Spain, the band's bus collided with a truck, killing the driver and seriously injuring the band and crew. Of the band, Mitchell was hurt the worst with a cracked vertebra.
"I have some permanent nerve damage from my upper chest into my head; it kind of feels like a bad sunburn all the time. It's tolerable, though, and I try not to complain about it because my other option would have been a wheelchair," Mitchell says. With that kind of positive attitude, the band began to pick up from the devastation and focus on moving forward.
truANT is the product of the band's collective experience and shines with a sparkling quality of its own. Songs like the wonderfully spicy Latin "Tia Luper" as well as the catchy, hard rock "Glow," give the album depth and immense appeal on many fronts. All in all, the guys of AAF have tried be everything to everyone and succeeded in doing so.
—Mindy Osborne
Grade: A-
CABLE TELEVISION
The Joe Schmo Show TV-MA, Spike TV
Premieres Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Spike TV, Sunflower cable channel 50
deception. Calling a station "The First Network for Men" suggests alternative programming, but alternative to what? Objectifying images of impossibly gorgeous women flood all forms of media. The very phrase "for men" is self-defeating, because the corporate machine that controls the airwaves has only one face, that of the white, middle-aged, misogynistic male.
Spike TV launched on Sunday, August 11, and with it, a new low in American male self-
Beyond these pretenses, Spike TV's programs are surprisingly tame, and, in their straight-arrow way, not at all representative of the rowdy college crowd the channel claims to cater to. Grease monkeys with homerotic power tools fill up most of the daytime, Star Trek rersuns fill up the evening, and dating shows fill up the night. Only Ren and Stimpy, Adulty Party Cartoon and Stan Lee's animated Stripperella capture the right spirit of gross-out impishness.
The station's new reality series, The Joe Schmo Show, falls somewhere in the middle. On the surface one of those silly battle-of-the-sexes vote-off shows that's really an elaborate prank, Joe Schmo casts boggle-eyed everyman Matt Kennedy Gould as one of nine "competitors," the rest of whom are really hired actors out to see if they can fool Matt into believing the game is real. Matt thinks he's competing for $100,000, while everyone else has been given an outline to follow and a part to play ("The Rich Bitch," "The Gay Guy," etc.).
The joke of The Joe Schmo Show, which premieres Tuesday at 8 p.m. on local cable channel 50, is that its "contestants" aren't very good actors, and the show generates a lot of suspense out of endless moments where its house of cards seem certain to topple. What the producers have done is to cast their hero's role with a generally trusting, sweet-natured person, and in effect, Matt blinds himself to the obvious scheming around him.
At this point, you either go with the joke or you don't. The trouble with reality TV is that its only purpose lies in thumping its nose at the players. The desired audience reaction is,"Look at
this stupid idiot trying to be famous!"
What sets Joe Schmo apart from other reality shows is that it's in on the cruel joke, which gives way to some interesting satire that might be better exploited in the coming episodes. The highlights belong to Ralph Garman, who provided various voices on Fox's cult animated series The Family Guy and appears here as the smarmy host of the show. Whether riding in on a white horse in a pimp's robe or staring down his contestants with absolutely nothing to say, Garman is the first self-referential personality to hit reality TV. His is a level of cool that Spike TV doesn't deserve yet.
—Stephen Shupe Grade: B-
VIDEO GAMES
Dynasty Warriors 4 T for Teen.
Available now for PlayStation 2 and XBOX.Average retail price $49.99
Summertime, ladies and gentlemen, means two things: lots of heat and loads of games. I tried to keep up with the games that came out this summer; I played lots of games that have made their way to the western shore and I played a few games that haven't arrived just yet.
One of the first games I tried out this summer was Dynasty Warriors 4. At points I asked myself, "Why does this game keep making more and more sequels?"
sequels. Dynasty Warriors changed its format in the second installment, from an all-out fighting game to a game where the protagonist is a one-man army capable of taking out hundreds of people at a time.
Dynasty Warriors returns for the fourth time with many of the old things rolled in with a few new options, but maintains the format developed for the second edition.
It's really hard for Dynasty Warriors to have sequels altogether. The background of Dynasty Warriors begins with
choosing to be an officer from one of the Three Kingdoms in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms Era. You start off with your choice of the Shu, Wu, or Wei Kingdoms, but as you progress, more armies open up to you.
One addition to the game is the option of creating your own officer for the game. Also, a new weapons experience system grants new and more powerful weapons.
Dynasty Warriors 4 is a good game altogether, but after doing the same old thing four times over and, it just gets to be repetitive.
—Chris Moore
Grade: B-
Guilty Gear X2
T for Teen.
Available now for PlayStation 2.
Average retail price $39.99
I must admit: I haven't played the first Guilty Gear, nor have I played Guilty Gear X. But after playing Guilty Gear X2, I need to find the first two games. Guilty Gear X2 is a blast to the fighting-game past mixing old-school two-dimensional fighting with Anime style drawings.
The story continues with Sol and the rest of his fighting pack challenging combatant after combatant until their goals are met in the end. Each character has three different endings that depend on who you fight, how long you fight them and how quick you beat them.
This game has a system that I've always wondered about, but never thought that any programmer would actually put into a game. This game has an Instant Kill system that can kill you in one hit if it connects. The only downside is you can only do it once per round. I thought the Instant Kill system was a myth for fighting games, but it seems that Guilty Gear,X2 puts some truth to it.
In the end, this game has a lot of good qualities. It features cool looking Anime style characters with a collection of Heavy Metal tracks. This fighting game series could go a long way.
Chris Moore
Grade: A