Mad Max type shit

It must be terrifying to watch society collapse around you. Imagine every night, hearing more and more emergency vehicle sirens. And then imagine the night when you suddenly hear none.

Joy to behold

I had the lovely experience this evening of being served by a waiter who remembered that waiting tables is an art. One that should make a customer want to tip you and not feel like they have to. Hats off to you sir.

I also advised the diner to make their pea soup special a permanent addition to their menu.

You know what....?

America is like a bitchy White Anglo-Saxon Protestant who just lost their job as a global executive, flailing their arms in a panic because they can't get their old job back. Now they're fucked because they've decided that work sucks and they can't just suck it up and go back to their shitty old manufacturing job. No one in this fucking country wants to work. We all want to be superstars. We need to smack our hundred million wanna-be writers, rockstars, actors, musicians, models, Wall Street Wizards and behold-the-power-of-my-mind bloggers in the fucking face and tell them, "It's not gonna happen. Grab your gloves and your helmet and get the fuck back to work."

I'm a star. I'm a star. I'm a star.

So, I finally stopped resisting and made my foray into film. It's a death/black metal documentary short featuring interviews with a few different kinds of fans. There isn't much in the way of whiz-bang pyrotechnics or hot juicy tits, but I think they say a few interesting things about metal from inside and outside perspectives.

Watch it here

Enjoy! Stay brutal!

MADE OF METAL: The Final Chapter

Yo. So my tenure at the Justice is done, and with it I lay to rest my first darling column. For your enjoyment, I reprint it here, now. Enjoy.


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Though it may surprise you to read that this is Made of Metal's final installment, remember that it is the nature of tragedy to strike without warning. Yes, it seems the time has come for me to step down from my throne and assume a civilian role; however, before you weep for me, remember that figures as powerful as myself often do not leave office in once piece. Hitler had to blow a chunk out of his own brain, William Wallace was drawn and quartered (Look it up. Very metal way to go), and Slobodan Miloševi? reputedly cannibalized himself while waiting for officials at The Hague to cook him dinner. All things considered, I've gotten off pretty easy, having made only one mortal enemy: Nine Leaves (You still suck).

But, in all seriousness, my timing couldn't be worse. Just as your guide must depart, metal stands on the cusp of a defining age in its existence. Metal, as we have known it, is slowly, begrudgingly headed once again into mainstream acceptance. The evidence is all around us. Metal has sprouted from basement shows to arena tours in the harsh light of day while backyard black metal videos (please do yourself a favor and watch Immortal's "Call of The Wintermoon" video online) are turning into high production pyrotechnic nightmares.

Likewise, TV shows like Adult Swim's immensely popular animated series Metalocalypse, which chronicles the misadventures of the international superstar death metal outfit Dethklok, have exposed the genre's more humorous side and made it more easily digestible (My sister Lily is now a devout fan of Dethklok). Metal is even making headlines in high society media; The New York Times runs frequent coverage of Metallica's ongoing drama. (For the record, I hate Metallica. As the public face of metal, the way most extreme metal fans feel about Metallica can be likened, I imagine, to the way modern Germans feel about the Nazis.)

Now, more than ever, there's money to be made in metal as well. High-profile package tours criss-cross the country with the backing of some pretty impressive corporate sponsors: Just to name one, the upcoming annual Summer Slaughter tour is backed by no fewer than 17 sponsors, among them being dickhead outfitter giant Affliction Clothing. Metal labels are boasting bigger corporate structures as well, with some of the larger labels like Century Media, Roadrunner Records and Nuclear Blast showing imprints on multiple continents.

All this leads us to wonder: What will happen when a genre that is essentially defined by its sense of deliberate otherness, abrasiveness and outcast nature becomes accepted and even enjoyed by the rest of society? Will fans stand by their beloved genre because they truly love the music, or will they abandon it once more when fair-weather trend fans enter the fold? Extreme metal is also branching out in such different directions that we have to begin questioning the legitimacy of the term itself. What does the caveman production and ethos of black metal have to do with the bouncier, commercialized tones of metalcore? All this and more I would have loved to explore with you, had I only another thousand years on the Made of Metal throne.

With my final words, I just want to offer my thanks to the people who deserve it the most. First and foremost, I thank my few faithful readers, without whom I would have no reason to even write these nonsensical volumes in the first place. Thank you to everyone at the Justice, past and present, who believed in my ability enough to let me near a computer (P.S.: I have been eating directly from the office peanut butter tub. Sorry.) Thank you to all the bands that have inspired me along the way and continue to do so. Also, a big thanks to my sister Lily, whose repressive older sibling tactics spurred me to find solace in the metal realms. I will convert you yet. And thanks to my parents James and Tina for threatening me with financial independence if I didn't join the school paper. Finally, eternal hails to the realm of metal. My heart forever belongs to you.

I leave you now to seek my fortune in the realm of harsh reality. One might say there's no place for a metal heart in the real world, but whenever I doubt that which pulses inside me, I will remember the words of my hero : Cowboys. Never. Quit.

The Office: Reality TV, or as close as we can get

It's been a few years since I've owned a TV. After my first year of college, I stowed it away and haven't really bothered setting it up since. And why should I? Most of my favorite shows have been available via bootleg over the Internet for years and newer sites like hulu.com are only making it easier to watch what you want at your leisure with minimal commercial interference. Whenever I do get to flip around on one of those old boxes, I'm reminded why I don't miss them at all: They fill me with a feeling of indescribable hatred.

About 90 percent of this feeling can be ascribed to reality television, which seems to dominate my occasional bouts of channel-surfing. I hate this plague on American culture for many reasons, but if I had to pick one, it would be the genre's failure to depict anything close to reality itself. The worst of these offenders have been shows like The Hills and The City (both spin-offs of the equally carcinogenic Laguna Beach), wherein we follow the lives of brain-dead socialites while they try to make it in the real world.

These shows take place in Los Angeles and New York City, respectively, two of the most competitive and rigorous cities on the planet, and yet the socialites' meticulously designed lives are utterly devoid of serious obstacles. Their time is spent buying anything that glitters and shouting really vapid stuff at each other in dimly lit clubs and restaurants. They've essentially boiled down the difficulties of modern urban living to a lecture on social etiquette. Even more callously, they have completely ignored the reality of life in today's work environment, which is, as we all know, bleak. Something I would watch: an episode on how not to buy a $500 purse the size of my fist and the subtle art of eating lunch out of a dumpster.

So, leave it to a lowly sitcom, The Office, to educate our nation's youth about financial reality and the modern job market. It's an odd rule, but parody often holds more truth than earnest attempts at the depiction of reality. In this respect, The Office is to reality television as The Daily Show is to cable network news.

For most of its existence, The Office has operated in the realm of inconceivable professional behavior. When was the last time you and your male colleagues spent an entire afternoon inspecting the amenities of the women's restroom? When was the last time your business sent its clients a product marked with images of bestiality and didn't go under? It's been a fun ride for the staff at the Scranton, Pa., branch of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, but the party is over and the realities of being an irresponsibly run small(er) business on the verge of technological irrelevance are knocking at the door.

Currently in its fifth season, sobering references to economic reality are increasing. In one recent episode, Stanley Hudson (Leslie David Baker), a slovenly, irritable fifty-something, describes his retirement plan in the wake of a minor heart attack but realizes that he doesn't have enough to retire and is too old to start working somewhere else. He likens his job to working in his own casket.

The branch manager, Michael Scott (Steve Carell), is a model product of the last two decades of decadent corporate culture in America. Comfortably paid, he is under qualified, devoid of intelligence and ability and responds to these shortcomings with bouts of selfish immaturity. Recently, Michael decided to quit Dunder-Mifflin after 15 years, a choice of which he learns the repercussions in the latest episode, "Two Weeks."

While serving his last two weeks as branch manager, Michael slowly pokes his head out of the office to discover an unforgiving world that he is no longer familiar with. In the reception area, a man eager to interview for Michael's vacant position describes the job market as "brutal." Shaken, Michael begins searching for jobs. One company he calls, Prince Paper, has gone out of business due to Michael's actions in an earlier episode. Undeterred, Michael decides to start his own paper company and invites his soon-to-be-former co-workers along. Each one, in succession, turns him down and gives him another sobering reason not to continue, such as the decline of the industry or lack of a salary. Later, when Michael is lying on the floor panting in desperation, he tells his coworkers, "Hello. I am your future." He asks them, "Who's coming with me?" If you're really into symbolism, it's a heavy moment.

Appropriately, Michael's replacement, at least temporarily, is Charles Miner (Idris Elba), a no-nonsense corporate fascist trained to cut dead weight wherever he sees it. In his presence, heads are kept strictly down at the desk.

But this is American television after all, and The Office has always had a sentimental streak (more like a full-on layer of paint), so we're left with a glimmer of hope. The receptionist, Pam (Jenna Fischer, consider this my marriage proposal), leaves with Michael, and the two saunter off into an uncertain future.

Now, anyone who's ever read an article on global warming knows that the Chinese word for "crisis" stems from a combination of the words "danger" and "opportunity." (Seriously, environmentalists love that fact). Perhaps that is what we have here. Perhaps the cast will leave with them. Perhaps they will begin anew. Perhaps they will learn from their mistakes and succeed. After all, isn't this what we hope for our own world?

MADE OF METAL: Nature's blackest candy

Some of you may remember that back in 2007, I gave Wolves in the Throne Room a rather favorable review, lauding the band for some seriously emotive modern black metal while giving it a stern talking-to about their penchant for filling its albums with ambient filler (roughly half the album was not exactly what you might call "songs"). There was a time, circa Diadem of 12 Stars, when Wolves was at the top of my list of black metal bands, until Finnish lo-fi necro warriors Horna pulled the rug out from under them.

But, here we are in the year 2009, and the Wolves have decided to step back in the ring with their latest release, Black Cascade. The results: much improved.

For those not in the know, which I suspect is most of you, Wolves in the Throne Room hails from the Pacific Northwest: Olympia, Wash. to be exact, a region whose breathtaking natural northern landscapes have a nasty habit of spurring some truly evocative metal brews that are sometimes brutal (Fall of the Bastards), sometimes ethereal (Agalloch), but always inspiring.

They are day-walkers, if you will. They bear the marks of cold, traditional black metal: raw production (though it's getting better), shrieking vocals and shimmering tremolo riffs. But they use these harsh elements to create much more melodic soundscapes than we're used to hearing in the genre. It's like getting a massage with a sandblaster.

The lyrical content is a breath of fresh air, as well (from what the band tells us anyhow; they don't print lyrics, and I can't really understand what they're saying). Those of you getting a little tired of hokey blasphemy-and I suspect that after almost 20 years of black metal bible bashing you just might be-can take enjoy Wolves' exploration of nature and shamanistic themes ... via shrieks.

At first glance, nothing has changed on Black Cascade. It's still four songs, and they're still really long, but this time the brothers Aaron and Nathan Weaver, along with guitarist Will Lindsay, have created some more immediately engaging material. I can actually remember, nay, have stuck in my head, the opening riffs of "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog," and I've only listened to the album 10 times! Beyond that, there isn't much else new in the Wolves' lair. They could still use a little more diversity tempo-wise. From the aforementioned "Wanderer … ," the album flows with a rather wraithlike, sea-sickened rhythm into "Ahrimanic Trance," "Ex Cathedra" and finally "Crystal Ammunition." If you're not careful, the whole album can blow by before you know it.

Wolves catches a lot of flak from black metal purists for their refusal to adhere to the genre's traditional aesthetics, as well as their rise in popularity within some non-metal circles. But, there are literally thousands of tr00 kvlt bands out there to satisfy your traditionalist cravings. Are you really going to let what other people are listening to ruin your day? From a writer's perspective, it's refreshing to absorb and review something that, if nothing else, at least stirs up a little bit of debate. Wolves in the Throne Room, I thank thee.

MADE OF METAL: Nine Leaves dangerously lame

Sound the horn! I bid ye welcome to my land of brutality!

It dawned on me recently whilst sitting atop my golden throne that on the whole, I have been far too benevolent a ruler. In my time here I've dished out too many kind words, too much praise for my metallic idols. In other words, I found myself wondering if I'd gone soft, perhaps vanilla. There is a balance to maintain, after all, and there are those that must be made an example of. So, in the spirit of fairness and the cosmic equilibrium of good and evil, I grant you Made of Metal's first merciless sack beating (the burlap kind, not that kind) and execution by rusty, dull axe. Limbs will be served after the main event. But before we start the beating, perhaps you'd like to know a little bit about this poor soul and how they wandered into this land.

The musical "collective" known as Nine Leaves made several grave errors that led them to these gates. First, they named their new album Peace in Death. Reasonably metal, no? Second, they plastered on the front of this new album apocalyptic artwork strikingly reminiscent of the great metal cover artist Ed Repka. Third, they sent this deceptive package into the hands of an aspiring scribe of brutality eager to review his first press materials: me.

So, imagine my surprise when, upon looking to welcome this new subject into my kingdom, I discovered that Nine Leaves is in fact a social/eco-conscious hip-hop project, and a really lame one at that. Shocked, hurt and betrayed, I called out my minions to drag Nine Leaves away to the dungeon to await punishment. The executioner's blade grows hungry. The time is now.

Nine Leaves is the brainchild of Zack Hemsey, a composer, according to his own Web site, "known for awakening the emotions of his listeners" (the site is smothered in similarly stock, trite descriptions). Strike one for humility. The site also reveals his affinity for wearing brown and gray. Strike two for being blind. Peace in Death, the group's second album, is a kind of mish-mash of hip hop and obnoxious female warbling set over beats so weak they make Will Smith's albums sound downright dangerous.

And therein lies the problem with this whole pathetic production; for an album and promotional package that claims to break the rules and push the envelope, Peace in Death is about as tame a work of art as I've ever experienced. The beats are thin and simple, sounding not unlike something I might tap out on the desk while I'm bored in class. Hemsey tries to spice the record up with a choir of incessant my-first-Casio-Keyboards, but fails to play anything I haven't heard in a depressing insurance commercial. Likewise, the look-how-deep-we-are lyrics are rapped out with zero enthusiasm.

I have no problem with hip hop, environmentalism or social consciousness. I don't really even have that big a problem with dudes who wear brown and gray, but history's greatest fanatics and dictators taught us that if you want your message to be heard, you have to put a little more zing in your brew than Hemsey and co. saw fit to on this release. The Care Bears are more militant than these guys. Give me rage. Give me give me calls for the bombing of oil rigs. Give me Malcolm X on meth set to blast beats and trip-hop. Give me something dangerous. Then we'll talk. Or not. Off with their heads!

We own the mountains!

I'm glad I have a lifetime subscription to Field and Stream because Exhibit A and Exhibit B point are pointing eagerly at Worst Case Scenario. Hence, I will begin formulating my survival plan.

The most important thing you can do is find a future shelter. Don't pick the same one as someone else. People will not be wild about sharing. This will be your own personal cradle of civilization.

Your cradle of civilization should be deep underground, preferably encased in some kind of indestructible material that has yet to be found. Check the labels on your fat roommate's briefs (If you're reading this blog you almost certainly have one). Avoid damp areas. Mutated mushrooms will attempt to penetrate your perimeter in the wake of the holocaust. Make sure it's in walking distance from where you spend most of the time. If your location has a toilet, you've won the game. If your location has toilet paper, someone is definitely going to come beat your ass.

Once you have selected a suitable location for your cradle of civilization (or CoC), begin appropriating supplies. This ranges from everything from food to guns to prophylactics (Yes, we all want to be in charge of a desperate band of thirty pregnant women.) Learn the land around you. Memorize the location of streams, lakes forests and possible food sources such as bee hives bear caves. Be prepared to defend what is yours.

With a little luck and perseverance, you'll build a depressing shadow of civilization populated mostly by suicide. The end result should look something like this.


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But, in all seriousness? Fuck those people. We're letting some these people decide the fate of the world? Fuck them. The rest of the world should be racing to stop these people. Us and them the same. Not under the banner of any nation, under the banner of sanity. Under a banner that reads "You have no right to decide the fates of those outside your borders you fucking pigs." Fuck.

Hidden Gems: Japan wages crazy heavy metal war of speed

Welcome back! Feast your eyes on my new Hidden Gems section. Under this banner, I shall bring to your attention anything my attention thinks your attention should be paying attention to. Be it band, book or movie, do my best to persuade you. Boogie down.

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Are you fan of speed? I'm a fan of speed. Speed is in this year and no one has more speed than Hayaino Daisuki. The super-metal trio's debut EP Headbanger's Karaoke Club Dangerous Fire straight up crackles in your hands, unfolding it's fire/hot metal chicks laden multi-puzzly-sleevebox thing. We're not talking about Origin/Braindrill/Marduk style speed here. We're talking about three grindthrashingblackpunk metalheads, Jon Chang (Discordance Axis, Gridlink), Matsubara (Mortalized) and Eric Schnee (dude, get a band), playing with enough urgent lunacy to outblast the worlds most metal drum machine. 500bpm or not.

I don't know why I love these guys so much. Maybe its because there so much love to go around so little material. At 14 minutes long, HbHCDF ends just in time to blue ball the listener, but maybe thats what keeps me coming back more more. (I was really going to write something very fucking stupid there.)

The formula is fairly textbook. Chang screeches, Schnee hammers, Matsubara shreds. Lots of bands use this formula, but lots of bands don't have Matsubara. Shame, because this dude is really awesome at guitar. He brings thrash, black metal, and dare I say it, pop, into the mix to come up with some of the catchiest, uplifting, neck wrecking riffs in the land. Chang's vocals are an aquired taste (one of my favorites), remaining consistent in his high-high register shriek. Extra point's to Schnee though for doing alot with a little. Also, in a refreshing turn of production, his kit sounds alive and breathing. (BEGONE YOU TRIGGERED, CLICKY, COMPRESSED AND SOULESS DRUMS!) In fact, the whole thing sounds like it was just tapped live off the rehearsal room floor, raw like dead carcass. Sure they teeter on the edge sometimes; the drums lose the beat for a moment or Matsubara misses one of the two million notes, but it all sounds so juicy. Juicy dead carcass.

Not much else needs to be said. Except an apology to anyone who thought this was going to be an undercover report on Japan's military resurgence. The truth is that the band is only have Japanese. The other half lives in Hoboken, New Jersey. Did you know they're name translates to "I love speed?" How awesome is that.


See for yourself.

MADE OF METAL: Whiplash, tears and some kid who stinks like shit

Hey ye faithful! So I thought I'd start posting my articles from my day job here. Might make the wait between interviews with Pulitzer Prize winners more interesting. Especially because such an interview will probably never happen again. Get brutal!


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Like the Black Death, Made of Metal returns once again to sow esoteric references and bouts of painful death among you all! This week's edition may be an account of a nearly two-week-old concert, but blame the University's erratic vacation schedule if you must. Pretend that you have just dug up a dusty old tome (tomes are very metal), an account of an ancient battle unearthed from the age of like, two weeks ago. Did that put you in the mood? Good. Let's get brutal.

Now before I can calmly and accurately recount the Feb. 12 massacre at the Palladium's upstairs club venue, I have a message for the lanky kid with the long hair, gray shirt (not very metal at all), braces and squeaky voice: You smell terrible. I've had to stand next to many offensive odors in my metal journey and you were by far the worst. You smelled like a trashcan full of used baby diapers dipped in a deep fryer. You smelled so bad you made me want to give up my killer spot in the front row. To semi-quote my favorite publication: if you don't hate your own smell, you hate no smell. You were also very annoying. You annoyed me. You annoyed the people around you and you annoyed the bands. Please don't come to any more shows. Some people are trying to enjoy their lives. On to the music.

Swallow the Sun, Finland's most depressing band ever (Finland being the most depressing country ever) and my main reason for attending the concert, was up first. In preparation for STS's first North American tour, every tree in New England went bare, and the temperature dropped to nearly zero as frozen matter fell from the sky (this could also be the effect of the phenomenon humans call "winter," but I don't believe in coincidences).

The sextet's brand of lurching doom-death seemed a little out of place on a bill boasting mostly whirlwind thrash bands, but they proved more invigorating in the live arena than I had expected. Despite expressions ranging from stoic to downright grim, Swallow the Sun played like champs for the 20 or so people who had streamed into the club early. Opening up with the appropriately titled "Descending Winters," STS touched on each of their albums, even whipping out, much to my delight, two tracks from their first demo, "Out of This Gloomy Light" and the crushing "Swallow." The sound man even managed to keep that fickle ol' "suck" knob on the sound board dialed down to zero, allowing the more delicate atmospheric touches to shine through with melodies that could squeeze tears from a stone. If you haven't checked these dudes out yet, do yourself a favor.

Next up was California's Warbringer, a band whose faux-retro thrash wares I've railed on at least once before in the pages of this mysterious tome. But while I still couldn't care less for this regurgitated, one-dimensional garbage, I'm willing to divorce my aesthetic tastes from my desire to have fun in the live arena. I can't tell you the names of any songs because they are generally identical three- to four-minute blasts of Bay area-derived classic thrash metal, but I can tell you that it makes for a heck of a live show. All this does not, however, excuse them for helping to resurrect the most one-dimensional sound in the history of metal.

The final act for the night was Sweden's hyper-technical/progressive/death-thrash veterans Darkane. Though I only own one of their albums, Layers of Lies, I thought I knew enough of their other "hits" to maintain a generally solid grasp of the set. My degree of preparation turned out to be completely irrelevant, though, because somehow the sound man lost control of that devilish "suck" knob. That thing must have been set to the power of 10 because I'm pretty sure that the guitars and lead mic weren't even on when the playing started. After a song or two, this situation was somewhat rectified with a nondescript buzzing heard from the amps. At one point, master shredder Klas Ideberg yelled a slew of profanities at the soundman, prompting him to turn said nondescript buzz way up. This made for a killer live mix consisting of really loud drums and a massive buzzing noise. Fortunately, through some divine miracle the sound was almost perfect for my favorite Darkane thrashterpiece, "Secondary Effects."

I left the Palladium partially deaf, heavily bruised, aching and greedily clutching Darkane guitarist Christofer Malmstrom's pick. A night of true brutality.


Originally published in Just Arts.

'Underworld' synopsis: Stab Sandwich

It's no secret that the Oscars, our nation's most prestigious, pretentious and expensive awards, are floundering. Viewership hits a new low every year, as have the costs of advertising slots during the three hour-plus ceremony; they've cycled through multiple potential hosts (arriving at not-so-superstar Hugh Jackman), and worst of all, they've become predictable. All of the top films have had an award locked down since they debuted as far back as June. These days, you can spot an Oscar winner a mile away. The ingredients are pretty simple: Take two parts sensitive subject matter (Nazis, gay rights, global warming), one part big-name actor (DiCaprio, Winslett, Penn), sprinkle household-name director, bake at 350 degrees, and serve it up to a society whose members' tastes are well known. I say we spice up the Oscars with some snazzy new categories, ones that might actually stir up some controversy among the voters.

So, without further ado I submit for "Most Entertaining Viewing Experience": Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.

By traditional standards of good taste, character development, convincing performance, emotional attachment and plot, it was a terrible movie. Simply awful. I imagine the creative process for this film went something like this:

Writer Alan: Well, the script is due tomorrow. What've we got?

Writer Bernard: Nothing really. We have like half a page of notes, and I can't read your handwriting. It's more than we had for the other two Underworld movies, but I think we should turn in at least a page this time. I need my Christmas bonus to pay child support.

Writer Alan: What about that script we wrote at the meth party? You remember the one. It was a mix of Interview with a Vampire, Teen Wolf, Braveheart, The Rock and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Writer Bernard: Brilliant! It practically writes itself! Cut and paste some dialogue from some other movies. Don't rip anything too good. We can't have anyone picking up on our evil scheme. I'm going to go do drugs in the bathroom. When I come back we're gonna party so get those pants off.

Now, fortunately for the degenerates at Screen Gems, the traditional elements of a "good" movie aren't always what viewers are looking for, and therein lies the strength of Underworld. It's not that it's so bad it's funny; it's more like the writers, knowing full well they had no chance of winning any critical acclaim, decided to throw everything into the pot and hope the end result would be outrageous enough to entertain and entice oddball moviegoers. The result? The only film of 2009 (and perhaps ever) to feature a horde of charging werewolves attempting to overtake a castle held by an elite caste of vampire rulers. And as a fan of werewolves, swordplay and acts of impalement, I was willing to see Underworld at the behest of two friends with similar tastes. Much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed myself.

If nothing else, Underworld delivers in the impalement category with flying colors. Everyone gets stabbed. Everyone. Shit, you can't go 10 minutes in this movie without one of the characters getting stuck with a sharp object, be it a sword, spear, arrow, dagger, ballista or spinning whirly blade. Lead werewolf Michael Sheen alone should get an Oscar for "Most Stab Wounds Received in a Feature Film." One of the scenes even features a kind of impalement obstacle course as a group of canine rebels attempt to flee from their vampiric captors under heavy spear-fire. Fuck yeah

There's plenty here for fans of dismemberment as well, with plenty of limbs, even torsos, severed and spurting. Pretty cool.

Unfortunately, all the guts and gore are spaced between some seriously unbearable bouts of dialogue, but truthfully, I was too busy laughing it up with my sidekicks to really notice or care. The strength of Underworld isn't so much the movie itself but the experience it provides the audience.

The rest of the world might not take notice, but if you want a good laugh with your friends and you've never seen a werewolf tackle a vampire off a castle wall and devour his head in midair, go see this movie.

Originally written for Just Arts.

Primordial dawning of the dark metal lord!!!!!!!

MINIONS!!!!
WELCOME AND KNEEL BEFORE THE NEW EDITION OF DAN'S MIGHTY HAMMER!!!

After starting this for class, I've been inspired to start it up again as my own personal pit of incantations, political, musical and other spells of intellectual summoning. Here, free from the shackles of my actual job and the pains of content editing and infernal spell checking, I shall cast down my words upon your eye sockets with such force that ye shall be blinded by my might. So, stay tuned and dare to breath in the blackest black darkness!!!!!! BE GONE!!!!