Skip to main content

S1 Ep. 14- Sara Shazam!

Welcome back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? This week's adventures took us to a new album by Sara Bareilles called "Amidst the Chaos" and a new movie by DC called Shazam! But before we get into the reviews, let's get through the news and trailers.

NEWS!
-Ezra Miller is done with playing the Flash. You know, after his 2 cameos and one actual appearance. I guess he just didn't like the direction the character or DC was going.
-Raconteurs announced their first album titled "Help Us Stranger" and will be out on June 21st.
-Tool is also releasing a new album in 2019 but no word on a title or release date.
-Taiko Waititi and Leonardo DiCaprio are planning an Akira remake. This could get interesting!
-Cowboy Bebop also got a reveal of the proposed cast for the film adaptation.

TRAILERS!

Joker looks like a weird comedy, drama, thriller, super villain movie? It has no idea what it wants to be and where it should go but I will go see it because I love that character but I can't see this being a good movie or a good version of the joker. And there have been so many but the Joker is only compelling as a character when pitted against Batman and with no Batman will it work? We shall see in October.

Avengers: Endgame gets it's final trailer which is essentially a reunion trailer. It showcases certain characters reuniting before the big final bout against Thanos and whatever plan they hatch to reverse the effects of the decimation. We see Pepper and Tony, Nebula and Rocket, and Tony and Steve all reuniting for one last fight.


REVIEWS!

Sara Bareilles released her 5th studio album titled "Amidst the Chaos" and it is a pretty solid album. It's a very generic pop album but there is a lot of really well crafted songs on this album. A lot of pop albums suffer from the first half having all the hits and the second half being all of the junk songs but this album does not do that at all. Sara does a nice job of scattering the well done songs throughout the album. The opener "Fire" has some really great vocal work and really gets you in the zone of the album and get's you ready. The next good song is the 3rd track titled "Armor" and is one of my favorite songs on the album. It has a catchy tune, a good message, and fantastic musicality. The final song I want to talk about is "Poetry by Dead Men" which is the 9th track on the album. It's probably one of my favorite on the album and I've had it stuck in my head all day. It has some really great songs but the album as a whole is really weak so it will not be making it onto my ultimate shelf but those songs I mentioned have made it onto the 2019 playlist and are in the running for the Top 10 songs of 2019.

Shazam! is the newest DC live action super hero movie and the first DC film of 2019. The concept and first half of the film are fantastic. It's fun, it has really well crafted characters, visuals are great, and the comedy is solid. I loved the concept of a kid finding out he has super powers and how he uses it but my issue is he never truly learned to be a super hero until his family got him to that point. The themes of the film are dark and realistic like an abusive father and brother, and a deadbeat mom; but the movie suffers from it's tone that it never truly goes into those themes enough to make a real moment. Thad has a really good backstory but then once he gets his powers ceases to develop. Billy develops once he gets his powers but never truly becomes the hero until his family pushes him to. The scene with his mother is deep and moving but it falls flat because Billy doesn't react the right way when confronted with that situation. The second half of the movie is really bad and doesn't have the emotional weight that the movie needed and set up at the beginning of the film to keep me invested until the end. The action was weak as well due to the fun nature of the film. I never felt like the anyone was in danger and Billy ever used his powers to their full extent. This makes the movie fall flat at the end and does not land this movie onto the ultimate shelf. Sorry DC, you still haven't made it.

Well this week was a busy week for me but I will be next week with all parts of Thrak Attack back! Blog, Video, Podcast, Tune in Tuesday, Where to Wednesday?, and Thumbstick Thursday! Next week will be my review of Hellboy and whatever else shows up this week!

                                                     All the Best, Ross


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

"Covers" by Cat Power

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? This adventure takes us to many genres of music covered by Cat Power! From Iggy Pop to Lana Del Rey to Billie Holiday, this album takes to many genres but somehow feels stale through Cat Power's style.  I knew this was a cover album and was excited to hear all the different songs sung in a new style. Unfortunately these songs are more than just the surface songs and singles. These are lesser known songs from big artists. I loved trying to guess who's song it was and then looking it up afterwards. Even though the artists she covers are from all sorts of genres this album is such a drag to listen to. The 12 songs slog on for 43 minutes and never feel like it's going anywhere. It's like she took the personality from the different artists but not any of the passion. I felt very bored listening to the songs. Two of the songs did make it onto my 2022 playlist including "Pa Pa Power" and "White Mustang...

Astroneer

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack, what's your adventure? Today takes us to many distant planets and worlds in a video game of exploring. Astroneer is a game originally released on early access in 2016 and was officially released in 2019 on Windows and the Xbox One and officially released on the Nintendo Switch today. The game focuses on exploration of new worlds and it is a joy! Unfortunately this is a terrible port and I know this because the reviews upon initial release were very positive.  Astroneer on the Nintendo Switch is a port from Windows and Xbox One in 2019. I know that this game works on a controller because it was on the Xbox, but for whatever reason I can't get out of the first section. I don't know if the button mapping is off, or if the way it was built on PC really doesn't translate to a controller, or if I'm just an idiot! But this game does not work on a controller. The visuals are great and are a cross between Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker and Min...

Hotel Transylvania 4: Transformania

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack, what's your adventure? Today's adventure takes us to the amazon rainforest on a quest for a crystal to change humans into monsters and monsters into humans. In the 4th installment of this weirdly long running series that is the plot! Does it make sense? Is it enjoyable to watch? Are there some redeeming qualities to this series that went from theater releases to straight to streaming? We shall see. Like I said before this is the fourth installment to the Hotel Transylvania series and I did not realize it was successful enough to make a fourth one. However, the first three were theatrical releases and this time around it was released only on Amazon Prime. Due to this, Adam Sandler is no longer the voice of the lead character Dracula but instead goes to Brian Hull who has mainly done voice acting for the Pup Star series, Tangled: the Series, and a Hotel Transylvania short film.  There is something going for this movie though mainly that the cast i...