Thanks to Nick G for sharing this! AMAZING! - Chess

Raise your glasses in celebration! Sam Mendes has signed on to direct the 23rd Bond film and this definitely gets my panties in a bunch! It better be true, cause AWESOME! Also, Sam? Can you make sure Bond sleeps with at least four chicks in the next film? And make sure they're the hot ones? KTHNXBAI. - Chess

"Sherlock Holmes"
Action/Adventure
Directed by: Guy Ritchie
Release date: December 25th, 2009
Reviewed by: Chess Hubbard
Grade:


Guy Ritchie is a very hit or miss director in my book. Action, however, is definitely his strength, and action is what he infused into Sherlock Holmes, making it the perfect holiday blockbuster. Aimed at as wide an audience as possible, Sherlock Holmes is everything a Hollywood big budget film should be, brainless and entertaining. The scenery is slick and the costumes gorgeous, but the real superstar here is Hans Zimmer, who scored a delicious soundtrack.

 

Ke$ha
Animal
RCA 
January 5th, 2010


by Neil Miller Jr. 

Now this is what pop music has been missing. Coming straight out of left field, songwriter/producer Ke$ha has laid claim to being the Courtney Love of the hip-pop world. Her hair’s a mess and she constantly appears to be wasted – whether if it’s a schtick or not, it’s one that will sell and one that I can definitely appreciate. Up to this point, all we’ve really had is Britney Spears who, let’s face it, is nasty while still being classy. With Ke$ha’s debut album, Animal, it’s clear that her one and only aim is to get people drunk off of her hard hitting electro beats and pulsing synth stabs, courtesy of Dr. Luke. Oh yeah, and she probably wants you to get drunk off of whiskey too, seeing how she mentions it frequently on the record.

I would like to preface this little article by saying I am in no way a "good" critic. I am overly opinionated and biased. Also, I didn't see THAT many movies this year, so when I say "The Best and Worst of 2009" it is more like "The Movies Chess Loved and Hated in 2009". Also, I am no cinephile. Yes, I appreciate artsy films from time to time, but I am not a fan of watching a film just because it is shocking or deliberately hard to watch. Anyway, here it goes...read on my friends, read on.

Trey Songz featuring Gucci Mane & Soulja Boy. LOL SMILEY FACE. LOL SMILEY FACE. NEVER. GETS. OLD.  

The post-holiday glow may leave you feeling a bit down in the dumps—and here at UR Chicago we are here for you. We want to help you beat seasonal depression, not with meds or UV lamps but with a few random LOL-worthy moments from around the Internet. Take a few minutes out of your day for a laugh and forget about winter's chill! —Katherine

Heath Ledger and Verne Troyer in a scene from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Short Attention Spanning
An Interview with Verne Troyer
By John Esther

As one of the shortest men in the world, Verne Troyer has had a lot of attention thrust upon him throughout his life. While a lot of this attention has been unwanted, sometimes annoying, the stunt double-turned-actor has used his height to his advantage, forging a sturdy career in film and television.

Born and raised in Centreville, Michigan, after his high school graduation in 1987, Troyer moved to Frisco, Texas, where he got his first break as a stunt double for a nine-month-old in the 1994 film, Baby's Day Out. Picking up more stunt work, then acting, along the way in both TV and film, the two-foot, eight-inch Troyer got his big break with the role of Mini-Me in Jay Roach and Mike Myers' movies Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002).

Among the many roles before and after Mini-Me, the lifelong bachelor had a brief appearance in Terry Gilliam's excellent 1998 film, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Apparently this encounter with Troyer made an impression on the former member of Monty Python (the only American member) because Gilliam wrote the role of Percy in his latest film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, just for Troyer.

"Avatar"
Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Directed by: James Cameron
DVD/Blu-Ray release date: December 18th, 2009
Reviewed by: John Esther
Grade:


Watching the trailers for Avatar, 20th Century Fox gives off the impression that an American Armed Force is under attack and the only thing to do is stand tall and fierce in the face of big belligerent blue people and their fellow monsters. It is a nice trick to get the testosterone target audience into the theaters for a mouthful of American P(r)i(d)e. Fortunately and surprisingly, writer-director-producer-editor James Cameron's long awaited follow up to Titanic offers up a better feast.

"The Lovely Bones"
Drama
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Release date: January 15th, 2010
Reviewed by: John Esther
Grade:


High minded by Brian Eno's musical treatments, the newest film by Peter Jackson bounces up and down between intelligence and idiocy with the latter outweighing the former in irritating measure.

Making great strides in acting since her wildly overpraised performance in director Joe Wright's Atonement, the highly-photogenic Saoirse Ronan plays 14-year-old Susie Salmon. Born in the late 1950s, raised during the 1960s, and hitting puberty in the early 1970s, Susie is a good girl living in a good home, helping her dad, Jack (Mark Wahlberg), construct boats insides bottles; playing rivalry with her younger sister, Lindsey (Rose McIver); and saving her brother, Buckley (Christian Thomas Ashdale) from death.

Yeasayer
Odd Blood
Secretly Canadian
February 9th, 2010
leaked on December 10th, 2009

by Justin Valmassoi

To say there is serious anticipation for Yeasayer’s sophomore album is like saying I enjoy watching drunk 22 year old girls kissing at parties. It’s like, “Duh. Obviously.” Basically everyone with a pulse is at least mildly interested how Brooklyn’s most talented batch of neo-hippie songsmiths are planning to follow up the unique blend of organic and electronic tones they so deftly laid beneath harmonies and handclaps for 2008’s ‘All Hour Cymbals’ and whether that follow up will be worth the wait and the hand wringing and the hours upon hours we’ve spent high, sitting around the coffee table drinking cough syrup and going, “Yeah, but is it going to be all wee-AH-wee, boo-ooo hippie banjo shit like that ‘Tightrope’ song from Dark Was The Night or will they get that live show vibe a la their Pitchfork.tv Don’t Look Down session, and is that camembert cheese? I love camembert. Who brought that? Can I have some?”



By now, most of you have heard lead single ‘Ambling Alp’ with its percussion-driven neo-disco beat and “stick up for yourself” positivity, and perhaps you’ve even taken a handful of mushrooms and watched its obviously mushroom influenced video a couple hundred times while peeling the varnish from your entertainment center in a hallucinogenic feedback loop. I know I have. If so, then you’ve actually got a pretty good grasp of what’s in store on Odd Blood. Aside from opening track ‘Children’ (which sounds like some insectile hive mind trying to force English through its mandibles over a menacing industrial drumbeat and low end piano stabs), Yeasayer have swapped pedals and ProTools for their tambourines and backup choirs, and the remainder of the album sounds a lot like Merriweather Post Pavillion-era Animal Collective covering Genesis for 40 minutes, and if you could stop making that horrible groaning noise I will try to explain why that’s actually a good thing, or at least not as bad a misstep as it sounds.