After seeing the official line up for the 2009 Coachella Music and Arts Festival, The Blot realizes the rumor of the decline of the three day music festival has been greatly exaggerated. The Blot was as turned off as anyone by the recycled lineups of last year’s music festivals, but Coachell seems to be making a concerted effort to turn things around. While headliner Paul McCartney continues the trend of festivals bringing in an established act from decades ago, it’s still freaking Paul McCartney! He’s a Beatle for god sake and I think it would be pretty cool to see him perform even if he is 20-30 years past his prime. 
The Blot hasn’t done a Free Music Friday post in a while, but that’s mainly because there hadn’t been a really great free release to talk about. That changed this week when The Blot’s favorite Canadian indie rapper Cadence Weapon released his Separation Anxiety mixtape. Now I have to warn you that this isn’t a purely free release, it actually follows the Radiohead model where fans are allowed to name their own price to download the album. So you have the option of donating as much or as little as you want to hear a really talented artist’s music.
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I’ve never had the opportunity to see Cadence Weapon perform live, but I’ve listened to his debut album Breaking Kayfabe a ton and really enjoy it. Plus he went on tour with The Blot’s favorite Canadian indie violinist Final Fantasy (a.k.a. Owen Pallett), so you know he has a great appreciation for all types of music. If you can find a bootleg of the 2007 CBC Radio performance where Cadence and Final Fantasy perform in concert together it’s a must download!
The Blot thought this week’s episode of Lost, entitled “Jughead,” was excellent. It didn’t have any crazy twists or turns, but it gave us a few answers and really started to connect some dots as we inch ever so close to the series finale next season. The best part of “Jughead” is that it was a Desmond-centric episode. In many ways Henry Ian Cusick’s Desmond has become the heart and soul of Lost. Des is an altruistic character in the truest sense of the term who only wants to help his fellow castaways and find his one true love, Penelope Widmore.
What was kind of shocking to The Blot was how great an episode “Jughead” was considering it didn’t feature a single member of the Oceanic 6. This just reiterates to me how strong Lost’s ensemble cast really is. The additions of the Freighter Folk and Nestor Carbonell’s Richard Alpert to the main cast this season has definitely breathed new intrigue and excitement into the craziness of life on the island.
I felt like there were two huge reveals this week and one truly heart whelming moment. The first big reveal is that we now know what Charles Widmore meant when he yelled at Ben Linus about how Ben stole the island from him but that it would be his again one day. Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected Widmore to have once lived on the island as an Other. I always guessed Widmore to be the financer of the Dharma Initiative and that Ben "stole" the island from him when Ben helped the Others wipe out (i.e. murder) the members of Dharma Initiative. But now that we know Widmore was once an Other, it’ll be really interesting to see what eventually drives him away from a place he holds so dear.
The second huge reveal wasn’t as much of a reveal as it was a tease about what’s to come surrounding Daniel Faraday. We learned more (although not enough) about Dan’s life before coming to the island, including the very interesting fact that his research was financed by Charles Widmore. It was also revealed that his experiments left a woman in a semi-comatose state and it was alluded to the he performed his time travel experiments on her, as well as on himself. How else do you explain Faraday’s travels to the island’s past? Although, I guess his time travels could be explained in a future episode as a byproduct of the castaways current time traveling experience because of Ben's "moving the island."
This is a potential spoiler, but my guess is Faraday’s mom is none other than Desmond’s friend from the antique store and the time traveling police woman, Ms. Hawking! It just makes sense, right? She deals with time travel, which fits into Faraday’s time experiments, she knows a lot about the island and what Desmond was doing on it, and in last week’s episode she is shown to be working with Ben in LA on locating the new location of the island. If she turns out to be Faraday’s mom this would be another great example of a minor character having a huge impact on the course of the show.
I think the one thing Transformers had going for it is that TF fans are used to the franchise being rebooted (i.e. Generation 2, Beast Wars, Universe, Animated) every few years. While G.I. Joe has launched some minor not-in-continuity series (including the Sigma 6 television show and Valor vs. Venom toy line), the upcoming movie (along with the new line of comic books from publisher IDW) is the first time Hasbro’s G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero franchise has been officially rebooted.
But that’s not all, Scarecrow will also be releasing two new colorways of previously released figures exclusive for NYCC 2009. First up is the 3” Medusa Stone Shiitake resin figure. ESC is only making 50 of these hand painted resin figures, so if you are planning on getting a Medusa make sure you get there early so you can also purchase the matching Medusa Stone Shiitake. Just look at the picture below to see how great they go together. Plus, the Medusa Stone Shiitake figure is only $14.99! At that price Scarecrow is basically giving it away, right? That is a ridiculously low price for a hand painted figure.
This is definitely one movie tie-in The Blot never expected to see. Earlier this month Neil Gaiman, author of the Coraline novel, announced the impending release of limited edition Coraline x Nike Dunk sneakers. (link) The Coraline Nike Dunk sneakers feature prominently the story’s trademark black buttons, what looks to be hand stitching along its seams and glow in the dark soles. But if you want to add a pair of the Coraline Nike Dunks to your sneaker collection, the odds are against you. These cool shoes are limited to just 1,000 pairs and you can only get your hands on a pair by winning them directly from Coraline.com.
In this new series, Richman sets out to travel the country in search of the best places to do some serious indulging. Adam begins his quest to find the best traditional food the nation can serve up and after hunting down the can't-miss flavors that make up each region's unique culinary history, he takes on the city's toughest food challenge. Man v. Food’s first season takes us to cities both big and small, with stops in cities such as Amarillo, TX, Memphis, TN, Columbus, OH, New Orleans, New York City and LA.
The show debuted last December, but I had never heard of it until this past week when I caught a few repeats including an episode that featured Richman traveling to a city that I hold dear, Austin, TX. The show is really entertaining, but definitely not for the faint at heart. Adam partakes in some seriously hardcore food challenges including the Atomic hot wings challenge at Pittsburgh, PA’s Quaker Steak & Lube, the disgusting ultimate burger challenge at Boston, MA’s Eagles Deli and the Carnivore Pizza Challenge at Atlanta, GA’s Big Pie in the Sky.
The Blot cannot believe that this long rumored figure is finally being produced! As you all may remember, it was the Kidrobot x Stones Throw Madvillain vinyl figure (released back in January 2007) that originally got me into the designer vinyl scene. Since that time it had been heavily rumored that a Kidrobot x Stones Throw Quasimoto would be following it, but after two years I had basically given up hope. Then yesterday Stones Throw announced that not only was the figure in production, but it would be hitting store shelves next month! (link) Needless to say The Blot is all kinds of excited.
I am more than a little disappointed in the Kryptonian Life-Suite Superman colorway because it is so unoriginal. I am not sure when it happened, but ever since Superman returned to life in his Kryptonian Life-Suite it has been considered a “second costume” for any Superman action figures released. It must sell really well because they keep using it over and over, and I hate it! The Cyborg Superman makes sense because it fits with the previously released Armored Batman, but isn’t Cyborg Superman really more of a Green Lantern villain at this point than a Superman Villain? I would have preferred a Bizarro Superman variant figure or a Red Sun Superman colorway to either of these two figures being produced.
Yes, we got caught up with everyone, and I do mean everyone: the Oceanic 6, the Losties back on the island, the freighter folk, the Others and even the Dharma Initiative circa 1970s. But I felt like everything we saw were things we’d find out more about in future episodes. In some ways that makes sense since the season premiere is the opening for an entire season to come, but by the end of the night I just felt unfulfilled. Evidently so did a lot of other fans according to this Los Angeles Times article that analyzed Lost’s ratings on Wednesday and found that not only did Lost return “to its lowest season-premiere numbers ever,” but “the premiere lost viewers every half-hour it was on.” (link) Now that is some really bad news for a show entering its fifth season.
I think part of the problem with this week’s episodes is that they were so heavily focused on the sci-fi aspect of Lost’s mythology. Obviously Lost has always had a sci-fi tent to it with a deadly smoke monster, ageless Others and at the center of the show a mysterious and magical island, but this week was different. The time traveling seemed to have taken Lost to the next sci-fi level, and even for a big sci-fi fan like myself it didn’t all make sense. The biggest question I have is why are the Losties affected by the time travel while others on the island are not.
It seems like the writers of Lost make up these rules but pick and choose when they want to break them. Like why does the time travel not affect the Others but it does affect Juliet, a former Other? Also, it’s obviously affecting the Losties on the beach, so is it also affecting the other passengers of Flight 815 who now live with the Others (like Cindy the flight attendant and Emma and Zack, the kids from the tail end of the plane)? Then we get the horribly hoaky explanation from Daniel Faraday that everything with them like their clothing, backpacks and the motorboat are being transported through time with them, but the Losties’ camp and their other supplies are not. Now how does that make any sense at all?!?
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