Metalocalypse: Season 4

BETRAYAL!! Adult Swim, what the fuck?!



Again! Agaaaaainnnn?? Boy do I know how to pick the winners. Fucking yet another show that I love that got axed before it could have been completed properly! Okay fine, maybe I should have put more research in but the result would have been the same! I'm fucking pissed off, let's talk about it. All things considered beyond bullshit and demons, this is one last solid season. Again, not really the route I would have expected because the remaining 12 episodes (back to the 11 minute format) are more one off stories but have threads and underlying elements that come into play. More weirdness with the broadcasting dates too, it took over a year for the actual finale to come out, the final episode ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and then quite an ambitious task was taken by making the finale a full fledged 45 minute opera! Yeah no horseshit, musical storytelling nonstop, a bold move to say the friggin' least here. Christ the only other time I personally have witnessed a metal opera was the album Nostradamus from Judas Priest, which I personally enjoyed a good deal, but I'm more accepting of musicals to begin with so I fully appreciate the time and effort into making this 45 minute epic. But good lord there are many loose ends to tie up and yet it also ends on a pretty satisfactory note, you obviously want more but it didn't kick you square in the groin and say, "Fuck you piece of shit, you're not getting any resolution here!" it truthfully ends well with the exception of the cliffhanger obviously for the next season. What blows my mind and makes this strike two if not three for Adult Swim is that Brendon Small the main force behind the voices, music, and production actually was in talks and even raised the funds necessary for a proper final season after the opera special was made but Adult Swim flat out declined it leading him to so far call it a day on Dethklok. Are you taking the fucking piss mate?? It was there! The series was there! The budget was there! No, of course not, fuck you Dude, you're not getting a 5th season! Cocksucking son of a bitch!! Bring back Metalocalypse or I put you in the camel clutch and break your back, and make you hemble, and FACK your ass! Ooh I'm gonna need some death metal so I can actually calm down a notch! And no I am never letting it go, I don't forgive shit in life. Bastard, swine, smartasses! I could utter every savage curse word that there is but it wouldn't be enough, so I'm gonna try my damndest to move on and talk about the show. Runner up episodes first, Diversityklok where the band is accused of being a racism and they take measures to disprove that ending of course with ludicrous deaths. Writersklok that introduces us to Abigail Remeltindrinc as the band's new producer coming in to kick their asses into shape leading to a turbulent vacation for the band. But my absolute favorite is Going Downklok, where the band travel once more to the dark depths of the sea to record and uh...a kind of cabin fever takes hold, won't say anything further but I was rolling laughing. Also, zip on the lip for the plot of the opera of course cause we don't talk too much finale plot around here regardless of show but I did like it, the musical score was excellent and while the lyrics aren't that Broadway level of well written it has some shining moments and tells the story concisely. The show has never dropped in quality severely or felt like filler in any capacity, the characters and scenarios are fun, the music is solid as steel, the animation quality only improves as the series progresses, the writing crafts this world of high satire at first but doesn't feel obligated to constantly point it out, the overarching or more I should say under the surface plot holds intrigue and makes you want to know more. It is a very good show, a surprise to be sure but a welcome one in my life, for anybody with a dark but good sense of humor and who would call themselves a metal fan this is a recommend. It certainly is not for everyone but I enjoyed it and am happy and proud to say I've watched it. I know society still might view metal music and it's fans as problematic or even a threat to one thing or another, but in my brief odyssey to these lands of smoke and lightning, heavy metal thunder, and riffs that will stay in my mind for a long while to come, I see many good folk with good taste in music who I'm thrilled to say unto you, for those about to rock I salute you. 4 stars, 8.5/10, and that hopefully is not the end for this series in the future.

Clay Pigeons

A request that was well worth watching.

This was weird. Not to say at all I didn't like it, I just knew nothing about it and was very pleasantly surprised. It's been a hot minute since I've seen a movie cement a tone so solidly and quickly in just the opening scene and it actually is a movie up my alley, weird and funny but dark. So our story goes that an average mechanic named Clay while out with his buddy, doing the most sensible thing imaginable, drinking beers and shooting shit when things go bonkers and his friend offs himself which starts a bad trend as several close people to Clay start dying and in the meantime he meets this delightfully bizzare guy named Lester who he forms an unsual friendship with. Things get so bad the FBI get called in and the stakes rise from there as Clay tries to prove he had nothing to do with the killings and find the real culprit. I probably had the dumbest smile on my face throughout this movie cause it's just such a weird, odd, off center movie but that's genuinely the strong point. Now the actors are pretty solid, Joaquin Phoenix class act as ever, Vince Vaughn who I'm not super keen on might have delivered my favorite performance of his career I mean this guy. Let me tell you about dis guy, he is un-f***ing-believable but he can come off very down to earth and likable. Last but not least we got Janeane Garoffalo, who is undoubtedly the straightfaced normal character but she might have made me laugh the most, she's just so not here to put up with people's bullshit, and shawty I love you for it. In terms of direction, it's not super striking or memorable albeit you get some quite lovely wide shots of the mountain ranges around the town, but neither is it at all bad. The director knows how to make the script leap off the page and delivers a memorable and severely off movie that is fun and very engaging to watch. And of course I gotta bring it up...because it's true, but guys the Hannibal vibes were off the charts here. Like, if you want a cliffnotes version of almost the whole show of Hannibal watch this movie. Possible gay bromance, murder, protagonist gets locked up but soon chases the villain, you got the FBI involved, there's a fair bit of will our hero run off with our villain or apprehend him for the authorities, I mean if Bryan Fuller didn't take some notes off this movie for his show I'll be damned surprised cause that is a coincidence unlike any I've encountered. Tangent over, go watch it. 3.5 stars, 7.5/10!