The Expendables: A Review

Jason Statham at some point is cheated on by his girlfriend, the lovely Charisma Carpenter. That is pretty much all the plot I could extract from the 103 minute explosion that is The Expendables. But if you are looking for any negative criticism of Sylvester Stallone's valiant tour de brute force, please look elsewhere (read: everywhere.) The film is currently unmatched in it's machismo and masculine vigor, and while Stallone aims to remind us of a time when these traits were lauded, the film is firmly entrenched in the right now.
These men are mercenaries: well trained, heavily armed, elite soldiers of fortune delivering pocket-sized wars to the doorsteps of anyone with the appropriate funds. In the film, the appropriate funds come from Bruce Willis as Mr. Church, fervently cementing the inherent homage to the Die Hard-like sentiment. But more importantly, in the theater the role of the benefactor of explosions is played by us. (I provided a hefty, very modern-day $13 out of the 38 million box office yield(*) simply for something to explode - and oh, DID they explode.) Thus, The Expendables is more than just Stallone, Lundgren, Willis, and Schwarzenegger making a comeback. We the viewer are coming back. And the film does exceptionally well welcoming us back with wide-open, tatted-up, ripped arms.
So now we're all back. But even at the very onset, the film's premise goes even further and asserts that... we've never even left! Mercenaries for hire are all the rage in The Expendables universe; have always been. There's no need for a back story or a weak formation of the team montage like the recent A-Team movie or Inception. You already know who's down. They're sublimely familiar. The roster reads more like your cell phone's contact list then an IMDB page.
The film begins with our friends in a standoff with Somali pirates holding a hostage. The politics of the film are overtly simplistic and tropes and cliches outline the antagonists, sometimes with culturally insensitive hues. Great! In this way, The Expendables poignantly emulates the denial of nuance and subtlety that exists deep within Americana, our media and our arts, whether we admit it or not. It's the post-everything hyper-liberalization of culture that has left an empty, sinking feeling in our stomachs. The Expendables nobly aims to fill that with an explosion or two.
So from Somalia we travel to South America because Bruce Willis said so. Once again very simple politics and developmental dialogue background immaculately choreographed fighting and explosions. There's some banter, some laughs, knives get thrown, red-shirts get shot, someone gets a new tattoo at some point, an airplane shootout, a car chase, a boxing match with Mr. T, Hulk Hogan wins the belt back from the Rock, a double cross, man hugs, some short jokes, an Old Spice guy (no not that one), maybe some objectification of women, and basically everything else that could be manly was allowed to roam free across the celluloid, untethered from logistics or politically correctness (admittedly, I chuckled when I put together that Jet Li's character's name was in fact Ying Yang.)
So untethered of a film, I felt no obligation to place the customary spoiler warnings anywhere in this post. Honestly, you can't spoil something so sweeeeeet. Also, as mentioned before, the plot is somewhat hazy to me and will probably be to you as well, so shrug. And not hazy in that "Shit! Inception blew my mind, bro! Do you think it kept spinning?" sort of way. More like, a 104th minute would have permanently ruined your ability to suspend your disbelief ever again, in turn killing the art of film for you forever, and perhaps actually killing you. Ignore that. Eventually the beautiful Charisma Carpenter saunters back into Jason Statham's life. So don't worry. Be a man, go watch the movie. I'd go again if I could find a theater that seats 20 thousand and got as drunk as I did the first time.

Distant Relatives (2010) Album Review

Perhaps we've forgotten about Africa, that often non-geographical homeland of big green, red and black wooden necklaces where an oblong continent or fist may hang. Maybe World Cup tourneys, Somali pirates, civil wars, fictional West Africans either scamming extraterrestrials or threatening Jack Bauer's America have turned Africanism or even Pan- Africanism into fodder for weak NYT editorials or punchlines to an unspoken international joke. Do we even remember Mandela or Selassie or Kinte (you know, Lavar "Kunta" Burton)? If their names appear suspect next to one another, then maybe we have forgotten Africa - Africa as the promise land of a peoples, where return was imminent and liberation and connection to roots were promised.
Nas and Damien Marley purport to have not forgotten with their recent combined tour de African force, Distant Relatives. But their, more so Nasir's, sincerity appear questionable at times. With occasional glimpses into the aforementioned Land of Promise (Track 8), we are immediately introduced to the bleak, disillusioning possibility that Africa is just a continent; Ghana, Nigeria, Mali...simply an assortment of countries. The Marley child, Jr. Gong, allows us to pretend a bit longer, a bit stronger as he relates to his audience as a Jamaican artist with Rastafarian overtones, it follows then, that he possesses a significant (spiritual) connection to the continent emblazoned almost subliminally on the album cover (wait look closely, there it is!). And to Damien I say who am I to question spirituality. *shrug* African pass accepted. But like many before him, he falls victim to the tropes and cliches of poverty and western neglect, without providing anything substantially new to the argument. In fact, you might ask how a millionaire spawned from nepotism, virtually a pop star with locks of irony, even comes to know poverty, distinguish himself from the western funds filling his bank account and financing his lifestyle. Nonetheless, Africa Must Wake up made me rethink putting away my big African chain for a moment, and Patience establishes Marley as a lyrical powerhouse. Learn the patois or you'll miss something.
Nasir Jones, on the other hand - a hand perhaps uncomfortably distant from Marley's, sadly comes short as he's known to do nowadays. It's possible to speak of him so separately from his cohort even though the form of the album aims to emulate almost inseparable hip hop duets like Eric B. & Rakim or Mobb Deep at it's best, Jay-Z and R. Kelly (the second time, not the first) at its worst, because Nas doesn't engage in the back and forth rapport and dually consistent flow necessary to pull something like this off. He simply gets out-shined. He's another millionaire rapping of difficulties too far gone to genuinely recall in rhyme, but doesn't seem to even believe this stuff himself. Truthfully, the match of the two MC's makes sense. They've done it before on Damien Marley's last outing, Welcome to Jamrock (Road to Zion, Track 11), successfully. And to bring a wider audience to a project that might be boxed in as simply reggae, why not invite a legend that comes with at least 50,000 or so hip-hop sales automatically? But Esco, why not show up?
But you know who did show up? K'Naan. If you don't know who he is, Google the man, add a new Pandora station. He provides a bit of legitimacy to this 61 minute 48 second voyage through the diaspora. Even with a shotty flow and squeaky voice, I appreciate his presence. The production value and other features are often impressive as well. Speaking of features, Lil Wayne's on the album somewhere, so watch out! Subpar, overhyped rappers have different affects on people's ears so guard yourself. Weezy automatically subtracts a few thousand bloggers from the already struggling rating for the album... so here we have it: 13k money making bloggers approve :) download link