Post-apocalyptic Thriller Priest Released Next Week

It has been a long time since a decent vampire film was released and I cannot wait until Priest is released in May.  The new Sony Pictures release is a post-apocalyptic, sci-fi thriller based on the graphic novel by acclaimed Korean graphic artist Hyung Min-woo.  Priest is set in an alternate world, some time in the distant future.  Society is paying the price for centuries of war between man and vampires and is run the Church, a sinister order of Warrior Priests.

Paul Bettany stars and his character is simply known as the Priest.  He is a Warrior Priest and veteran from the last Vampire War, now living in obscurity in a walled-in and desolate city ruled by the Church.  When his niece Lucy (Lily Collins) is abducted by ancient vampires intent on turning her into one of them, Priest breaks his sacred vows to venture out and rescue her.  He is helped in his quest by Lucy’s boyfriend Sheriff Hicks (Cam Gigandet), a trigger-fingered young wasteland sheriff, and a former Warrior Princess (Maggie Q) who possesses otherworldly fighting skills.  Priest has been brought to life by emerging director Scott Charles Stewart and the stellar production team includes Sam Raimi of Evil Dead and Drag Me to Hell fame.

I am absolutely mad about Cam Gigandet and I enjoy Paul Bettany and Maggie Q too.  I definitely want to be one of the first to see this film.

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Sony UK has been promoting Priest for some time now, and earlier this year Sony challenged a group of media students in London to create their own version of the Priest trailer. They were given one night to produce their trailer and then three students were flown out to Los Angeles the next morning to pitch their version of the trailer to the film makers of the movie.  What an incredible opportunity this is, especially for the one media student who won the challenge!

The campaign came out of Sony’s brand proposition ‘make.believe’.  The idea is to inspire people, to showcase the power of creativity, to turn ideas into reality and to know that anything you imagine can be made real.

This video tells the story of The Priest Hollywood Challenge:

You can watch the three finished trailers at YouTube:

Josh’s Trailer- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnEemXsGcRo

Moritz’s Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83-ufthBmug

Saba’s Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyerRmIOkqM

Josh’s trailer is definitely my favourite.  I really love the way it begins and the ending too.  Which one do you prefer?

Priest will be released on 6 May 2011 in the UK and 13 May 2011 in the USA.  To kill time until next week (or the week after if you have to wait!), you can head over to the Priest Priest Yourself Facebook app and turn your Facebook photos into gruesome priests or vampires.  Not only is it fun, but there are prizes to be won too.

 

Images © Sony Pictures

Disclaimer: This is a Sponsored Post but all opinions, enthusiasm and worship of Cam Gigandet are entirely my own.

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Book Review: The Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa

Julie Kagawa took the young adult world by storm in 2010 with her debut novel, The Iron King.   It was a tale of theft, mischief and chaos set in the land of the Fey, Faeryland or the Nevernever.  Featuring Oberon, the King of the Summer Court and a host of Seelie and Unseelie Fey, The Iron King is not your average fairy tale but hinted at the malevolent, tricky and mischievous beings at the very edges of our reality.

At the end of The Iron King, our heroine Meghan, the half-human daughter of Oberon, entered the Iron Realm and defeated the Iron King Machina.  She did that with the help of the Winter Prince Ash but it was only by putting herself in his debt that she was able to enlist his help.  No sooner had she returned to her own world, depositing her younger brother Ethan safely in the arms of her mother, when Ash appeared to call in his debt and demand that Meghan uphold her promise to return with him to the Winter Court.

The Iron Daughter opens with Meghan trapped in the Winter Court, awaiting an audience with Winter Queen Mab, who must decide her fate.  The ice prince Ash has become even icier, throwing Meghan into emotional turmoil over the future of their relationship.  After a somewhat desolate and frozen start to the book, mayhem ensues as the Winter Court is attacked and the Spectre of Seasons is stolen.  The subsequent turmoil and non-stop adventure includes racing through Faeryland and the reappearance of Puck; being chased by an angry dragon in the Briars; fleeing into The Between, the realm of the Dark Muse Leanansidhe and her army of outcasts and banished Fey; and a search and battle in Silicon Valley with its human and Fey drones, technology and countless threats.  In the midst of all of this action is a classic love triangle between Meghan, Puck and Ash.

While I struggled to suspend my disbelief in The Iron King and felt that the depiction of the creatures of Faeryland bordered on the ridiculous, I had no such problems with The Iron Daughter.  Julie Kagawa has really stepped up with this second novel and it far surpasses her debut.  The love triangle between Puck, Ash and Meghan kept me swapping sides and loyalties like never before and I found all of the characters far more sympathetic in this book.  One of the aspects of the book that I most appreciated was Meghan’s tendency to monitor and regulate her own self-pity and self-absorption.  Far from fall to pieces as Ash repeatedly withdraws his attentions, Meghan catches herself in her lugubriousness and just gets on with her quest.  Julie Kagawa’s Iron Fey series has been hailed as the new Twilight but I feel that it might surpass that comparison as Meghan Chase is far more secure and self-assured than Bella Swan ever was. 

I also appreciated that a lot more of this book played out in the real world compared to the first novel.  That is, of course, if you can call the mindless ambition, ruthlessness and the pursuit of technology in Silicon Valley ‘the real world’.  As enchanting and maddening as Faeryland is with its wyldwood and lands of eternal twilight and winter, I look forward to the next book, The Iron Queen, which promises to start off in the mortal realm.

The only fault I found with the book was that I felt lost at times.  Granted, I had not enjoyed the previous book as much as this one and had struggled to relate to the characters.  This could account for me undervaluing certain events in the first book, especially Meghan and Ash’s closeness.  Nevertheless, I’d recommend reading Winter’s Passage first, after reading The Iron King and before starting The Iron Daughter.  Winter’s Passage is a short novella written by Julie Kagawa and set between the events of the two books and it certainly helps to flesh out the story and fill in some of the blanks.  Winter’s Passage is available in eBook form from The Iron Fey website or free of charge from Amazon Kindle. 

In terms of the plot, I found that I guessed large portions of the story, especially the identity of Charles but I imagine that this was somewhat intentional on the author’s part, as she left breadcrumbs and clues for her readers.  In any event, I was pleased to see that the story turned out to my liking and I really liked the ending.  In terms of battles, the great battle at the end of the book was quite thrilling, full of the most unimaginable, wicked creatures and a full compliment of Seelie and Unseelie Fey.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Iron Daughter and cannot wait to read The Iron Queen next.  I am also pleased to see that a fourth book in the series, The Iron Knight, will be released later in the year and it will apparently be told from Ash’s point of view.  The comparisons with the Twilight saga continue and I really look forward to this Midnight Sun-esque twist.

I would give The Iron Daughter four out of five stars.

Buy The Iron Daughter at Amazon.co.uk ¦ Amazon.com

Download Winter’s Passage free from Amazon.co.uk

Article first published as Book Review: The Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa on Blogcritics.

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Music Video: The Bambi Molesters–“Malaguena”

Um, why has no one ever told me about Bambi Molesters before? Better yet, when I was at Exit Festival in July 2010, why was I not dragged kicking and screaming to see them on stage?  Granted, they played at 2am on the Monday morning by which time I was near fainting and hallucinating from lack of sleep after staying awake for four days but come on!  Surely I could have been force fed yet another dodgy-yet-lethal caffeine/guarana drink and forced to see the gig?

*Sigh*

I hate discovering brilliant bands and then discovering that I missed an opportunity to see them in concert.  It kind of reminds me of the time Cranberries were just starting out and I opted to stay at home with a friend because I only had one ticket and he couldn’t go.

Apart from having a brilliant name, surf-rock trio hail from Croatia and are now the second Croatian band I am mad about.

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Music Video: Placebo - “I Know”

Placebo's iconic track "I Know" was never intended to be a single and no official video was ever recorded for the song.  Yet somehow it remains the absolute favourite track of many Placebo fans, including me.  It appeared on their debut album Placebo between singles “Nancy Boy” and "Bruise Pristine" but I’ve never been able to listen straight through the album without playing “I Know” over and over again.  The lyrics just get me every time.

I must say, I would love to hear this song live but I’ve seen Placebo twice in concert and have never heard them play this track.

Thanks to Song of the Day for reminding me of this brilliant track.

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Detroit Band Almost Free Offer Free Download

Every now and then, I come across a band and find it impossible to pigeon-hole them into any one genre.  Detroit-based trio Almost Free is such a band.  As an unsigned band, they self-produced their 2009 release Modern Mistakes, a collection of edgy tracks that could have quite easily hit the New Wave charts in the early 80s.  They return in 2011 with the In/Out EP, a set of four catchy and infectious indie pop songs featuring lyrics that focus on topics such as “apathy, nostalgia, neuroticism, anti-religious sentiment, sex, death, ignorance, and (albeit infrequently) love.” 

Almost Free are Andy Bird on vocals and guitars; Bob Impemba on bass, synth and noise; and Garren Stevens  on drums.  They have a disaffected take on modern life and an interesting philosophy to go along with it.  Explaining the name of their band, Andy Bird asks “How can we be free if we are always chasing an intangible and subjective state of mind?”. It is a decidedly existentialist idea that we exert our freedom and act insofar as the restrictions of society allow while at the same time understanding that we are responsible for our own actions.

Almost Free comment on the boredom, malaise, monotony and conformity of modern, suburban life and the In/Out EP will appeal to fans of The Smiths, Bloc Party and Veil Veil Vanish.  The EP is a snapshot into their sound and I would hope that it is followed up soon with a full length release.  You can catch Almost Free performing on April 23 at the Pike Room, in Pontiac, MI.

To promote the release of the In/Out EP on June 7, 2011, Almost Free are giving away a free download of the first track on the EP:

Almost Free – “Really Don’t Know (About You)” (mp3)*

Almost Free links: AlmostFreeMusic.net Almost Free @ Facebook Almost Free @ Last.fm Almost Free @ MySpace

 

If you can’t wait until June for the release of the EP, you can download their album Modern Mistakes from Amazon.co.uk¦ Amazon.com

* This is a legal download provided by the PR company for us to post and share. If there is any question of an infringement of copyright, please contact me at TheMediaAddict at gmail dot com and I will remove links immediately. Affiliate links are used in this post.

Article first published as Almost Free Offer Free Download on Blogcritics.

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Book Review: Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

It is no secret that I have highly ambivalent feelings about the works of Stephenie Meyer.  Perhaps it is because I was the independent and headstrong girl who got involved with a psychopathic control-freak and was nearly destroyed by his madness. More likely though, it is the extreme feelings that the books evoked in me and the levels of obsession they inspired. Quite simply, I could not have felt such anger and disappointment in the way Bella was written had I not been so emotionally invested in the books.

Indeed, my issues with the books and my waning reviews had nothing to do with the stories as such, but with the idea that millions of young girls around the world were looking up to a heroine hell-bent on destroying herself in order to be with the object of her affections. The level of manipulation, emotional blackmail and co-dependency among the characters in Stephenie Meyer’s book was astounding.

When I read Twilight, I could not put it down.  It became known in our household as “that damned addictive book”.  I gave Twilight a 5-star rating which reduced to 4-stars with New Moon and 3-stars with Eclipse.  Always quick to pick up on a pattern, I could see where this was going and did not want to put myself through the misery of another Stephenie Meyer book.  Instead, I opted to read Cleolinda's hilarious summaries of Breaking Dawn and was thankful that I avoided Popsicle sex, scenes from Rosemary's Baby and the borderline-paedophile notions of grown men werewolves imprinting on new born babies.

Still, everybody said I should read Breaking Dawn, the final novel in the Twilight Saga, and feeling desperately in need of some light fiction on my recent holiday, I finally borrowed a friend's copy.

I was not surprised at how readable and addictive the book was; after all, I had found all of Stephenie Meyer's books to be impossible to put down.  Any concerns I had held about reading a 720-page book were also dispelled as I read late into the night and ploughed through the book in a couple of days.

What did surprise me is that I enjoyed every single page of Breaking Dawn and I was absolutely engrossed in the story. The parts that I had thought would be icky and, well, just plain wrong were actually handled really well. Well, except for the imprinting thing which still smacked of grooming to me.  I certainly don't make a habit if reading up on the entire plot of a book before reading the book itself but in this case I had and yet there were still sufficient surprises and revelations to keep me interested.

As always, I enjoyed the parts about vampire history, the legend of the Volturis and the challenge that a vampire-human hybrid such as Renesmee might present. Hey, after a while, even the name Renesmee began to grate less on my nerves and felt less like a literary version of nails scratching down a chalk board.

Of course, there were the obligatory cringe-worthy moments in the book.  Having a baby that grows at a rate of a couple of months per week and magically projects her thoughts might be every mother's dream but it felt extremely contrived and more than a little convenient.

The best parts, as always, were those involving the Volturi, my favourite characters in both the books and films (and possibly the only characters with an ounce of depth).  While their existence and imminent arrival was prominent in the latter part of Breaking Dawn, it is a pity that they were mostly relegated to the battle at the end.

In Breaking Dawn, all of the loose ends are tied and the story is brought to a grand, if not highly convenient, conclusion. If you're one of the few Stephenie Meyer fans or readers that have not yet read the book, I would certainly recommend it. The book is not without faults, including the Mary Sue characterisation and too-perfect ending but it is light, fun and addictive and certainly worth the read. I'd give Breaking Dawn 3.5 stars.

Buy Breaking Dawn at Amazon.co.uk¦ Amazon.com

Article first published as Book Review: Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer on Blogcritics.

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Music Video: Clinic–“Come Into Our Room”

I sometimes think technology was made just for me or more specifically, digital music.  I love mp3s and iPods and am gleeful that I will never have to negotiate another crappy CD cover again unless I really want to.  Perhaps the best invention ever is the Shazam app on iPhone.  I am sure everyone knows the app or one like it but what it does is pick up the digital signature in music and it can identify any song you like.  So if you’re in the middle of a shopping centre and you hear the most awesome song, you can whip out your iPhone and use the app to identify the song.

I’ve started watching The O.C., one of my favourite shows of all time,  right from the beginning again and I’m loving it.  In “The Rivals” (season 1, episode 17 of The O.C.) Ryan breaks into the principle’s office to steal Oliver’s file and the music playing in the background is awesome.  I used my trusty Shazam app et voila! It is Clinic –“Come Into Our Room”.

Judging from the video above and their Last.fm profile, Clinic are clearly an indie band from Liverpool.  As a serious fan of British indie music, I am mortified that I had not previously heard of this band or noticed this song.  I shall have to redeem myself by rushing out and getting all of their albums.

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Unsigned Band Museum Offer Free Downloads

They are the most popular unsigned band on Last.fm, with more than 100,000 listeners and almost one million plays.  Hailing from Hamburg, Germany, Museum have recorded and released two EPs and have completed their debut album Traces Of, but they have yet to find a label to release their album. 

Museum are Tobias Hermes on vocals and guitar; Söhnke Grothusen on guitar; Hagen Hamm on bass; and Florian Bolzau on drums.  Tobias and Söhnke founded Museum back in 2004 after attending school together.  They had written a couple of songs between them and figured it would be fun to play them live and record them.  They taught their good friend Hagen to play bass guitar and, after losing two drummers, they recruited another friend, Florian, on drums. 

Between 2004 and 2006, Museum released two EPs which they recorded and produced in Tobias’s apartment.  The Old Firehand EP and Exit Wounds EP and are available to download for free on their Last.fm page.  Yet despite a gruelling touring schedule, Museum still struggled to find a label to finance and release their upcoming album.  Left with no choice, they began to record and produce the album in their own studio.  Tobias explains that insane perfectionism, university, graduation, jobs, personal matters, and a lack of time and money meant that the album took an incredible three years to record but now it is finished.

Listening to Traces Of, it is astounding to think that no one has signed this band yet.  It is even more incredible to think that Museum have written, recorded and produced this album on their own because it sounds every bit like a professional production.  Tobias Hermes could be the lovechild of Matt Bellamy and Brett Anderson and Museum are clearly influenced by bands such as Muse, Suede and The Smiths. 

Tracks such as “For The Very First Time”, “Eden” and “Calm” are complex, energetic tracks that are worthy of stadium-sized crowds while “With Love” is an epic song with a heart-stopping beat and stunning lyrics.  My favourite song on the album is “Uncorrupted” and it was this track that caught my attention and made me notice Museum.  Traces Of has a great tracklist and the songs flow really well into each other.  It is a good album to listen to in its entirety but once I reach “Uncorrupted”, the last track, I can’t move on as I have to put this track on repeat.  Intensely penetrating and moving, “Uncorrupted” first appeared on the Exit Wounds EP and is available to download from Last.fm.

To promote their album Traces Of, Museum are offering two singles for download at their website BinaryMuseum.net.  “The Law” and “Midwinter” are both available as high quality, 320kbs downloads.  So download the tracks, share the video and for the love of good music, could somebody please sign this band?

Catch up with Museum on Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and MySpace.

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Book Review: The Long Song by Andrea Levy

Before penning The Long Song, Andrea Levy was best known for her Orange Prize award-winning novel Small Island which featured the lives of four Jamaican immigrants to England in 1948.  That is all due to change now given the success of The Long Song.  It was shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and is an epic tale set in the last, dying years of slavery and the early years of freedom on the island of Jamaica. 

Andrea Levy explains that she got the inspiration to write The Long Song after witnessing a young Jamaican woman stand up at a London conference and ask the heartfelt question of how she could be proud of her Jamaican roots, knowing that all of her ancestors had been slaves.  Andrea Levy remembered her own feelings at that time and how she questioned why anyone would feel ambivalence or shame toward slavery.  It was at that point that she decided to give a voice to slaves that had been silent for too long, to explain the strength, ingenuity and intelligence that helped them survive all of those years as slaves. 

The Long Song is not a book about slavery nor even racism.  It is the story of July, a house slave upon the Amity sugar plantation in Jamaica in the early 19th century.  July is conceived when her slave mother Kitty is raped by overseer Tam Dewar.  After a traumatic birth, July is fortunate to live with her mother for some years, helping in the fields to bring water to the field slaves.  That is until the arrival upon the plantation of Caroline Mortimer, plantation owner John Howarth’s widow sister, who takes one look at little July and steals her from her mother to be her personal companion within the grand plantation household.  It is a theme that will continue throughout the book.

July grows up in the household and Levy holds nothing back in telling the reader of the horrors of slavery while the narrator simultaneously manipulates her storytelling to show how malleable the truth can be when telling tales of days gone by.  The book is set against the backdrop of major events such as the 1831-1832 Baptist Wars and the end of slavery in 1838 and these events have significant and major consequences on the Amity plantation and life (and death) in the main household. 

There are many major twists, surprises and rather unpleasant shocks in the story and by the end of the book, one gets a sense of the epic scope of the story.  While at first there does seem to be a happy ending to The Long Song, the magnitude of the suffering and injustice that July experiences in her life slowly begins to makes its impression upon the reader once the book is finished.  It is a touching and heart-breaking story and I believe that Andrea Levy has indeed achieved her goal of giving a voice to slaves by telling the story of just one slave. 

It is clear that Levy undertook vast amounts of research in the workings of a sugar plantation of early 19th century Jamaica and she seemed to represent the speech and customs of both slaves and slave owners with authenticity.  Unfortunately, as Levy herself notes, there is very little in the way of actual slave history so it would be hard to tell.  However, as engaging and dramatic as the story is, The Long Song is a hard book to read and were it not for the deadline I imposed upon myself in order to finish it by this weekend, I would no doubt still be struggling through it.  I also found that in trying to explain so many characters through the eyes of July, none of them were really well developed and were somewhat flat.  This could be a deliberate act on the part of the author though as the narrator does attempt to distance herself from the people and events in the book as they become ever more painful for her to relate.

In terms of readability and my enjoyment of the book, I would rate The Long Song 3.5 out of 5 stars.  It is a good book and excellent to read and discuss at a book club.  I will definitely be reading Andrea Levy’s other work in the future.

Buy The Long Song at Amazon.co.uk ¦ Amazon.com

Article first published as Book Review: The Long Song by Andrea Levy on Blogcritics.

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Video: Editors – “Two Hearted Spider” (Live at Royal Albert Hall)

I had the privilege of watching Editors perform at the Royal Albert Hall in London a week ago.  It was possibly the best concert I have ever been to and the acoustics in the venue were incredible.  We were treated to two brand new tracks and “Two Hearted Spider” was one of them.  I fell in love with this track straight away, from the opening chords in fact, and I loved Tom Smith’s emotional lyrics.  He sang from the heart and I simply cannot wait until the new album comes out. 

You can read my review of the concert at Concert Review: Editors - Royal Albert Hall, London, March 26, 2011; check out the setlist over at Setlist.fm; or read my review of their latest album In This Light and On This Evening.

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PlayStation Move Heroes: Story Trailer

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken the time out to play on my Playstation.  Playing games is an absolute luxury for me with with work, study and life in general (not to mention three blogs and a healthy addiction to media) but I might just make an extra effort now.  My favourite games are Crash bandicoot, Jak and Daxter (I stole my brother’s Jak3 hoodie from him), and Ratchet and Clank.  Now Sony are releasing PlayStation®Move Heroes which will feature the worlds of Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, and Sly Cooper.  The reviews so far have complained about the absence of Crash (boo) but have said it plays like an arcade game which i actually think I’d like. 

The only problem? I don’t have a PlayStation^®Move Motion Controller.  Perhaps it is time to upgrade!

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Baby Teardrops Offer Free Download

Fresh from performing at SXSW this year, Baby Teardrops are gearing up for the release of their debut album X Is For Love on April 7. Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, Baby Teardrops are unsigned and are self-releasing their first album.  It is a daunting task indeed but should be no problem for these rising stars. 

Baby Teardrops are Matthew Dunehoo on vocals and guitar; Megan Thomas on bass, backing vocals and piano; and Gerry White on drums. Their style has been described as neo-grunge but I would place it before that and compare them to the likes of The Jesus and Mary Chain, Pixies or Violent Femmes.  Musically, Baby Teardrops have a great multi-layered sound with reverberating guitars and hypnotic basslines that blend perfectly with Dunehoo’s distinctive vocals. 

As Dunehoo explains, “my songs are opportunities for one idea to exist in the air with sound surrounded by a bed of, if not fancy, then functional flowers.” It is indeed a rich and complex sound and the tracks on debut album X Is For Love are certainly catchy; I predict big things for Baby Teardrops in the near future.

 

Keeping with their indie theme of releasing their own album, Baby Teardrops hired independent New York filmmaker Serg Soza to direct the video for their track “Smooth Sailing Ahead”.  The video was shot earlier this year on a particularly icy evening in New York’s Lower East Side.  The bar in the video is The Local 269 on the Lower East Side where Gerry White still works.

To mark the release of their debut album X Is For Love on April 7, Baby Teardrops are offering their track “Banged in the Heart” for free download:

“Banged in the Heart” (mp3)*

Catch up with Baby Teardrops on their website, MySpace, Twitter, Facebook or YouTube channel.

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* This is a legal download provided by the PR company for us to post and share. If there is any question of an infringement of copyright, please contact me at TheMediaAddict at gmail dot com and I will remove links immediately. Affiliate links are used in this post.

Article first published as Baby Teardrops Offer Free Download on Blogcritics.

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