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  • Priest = Aura

    • 10 out of 10
    • The Church
    • Another of my all-time favorites, Priest = Aura is one of those rare albums where every song is simply fantastic, and a testament to how good pop-rock can be.

      Each song immediatel

  • The Stooges

    • 8 out of 10
    • The Stooges
    • Another pillar of my musical foundations, The Stooges' first album is one those records whose influence far outweighed its popularity. Like The Velvet Underground & Nico, hordes of people wh

  • Jagged Little Pill (Acoustic)

    • 6 out of 10
    • Alanis Morissette
    • Ten years after the original release, comes the traditional celebratory acoustic re-recording. The album has held up remarkably well. While it is not as meaningful to me as it was when I was sixteen,
  • Now Here Is Nowhere

    • 10 out of 10
    • Secret Machines
    • The Secret Machines' inaugural album, Now Here is Nowhere is both old and new in its sonic assault. The trio's surprisingly big sound evokes Pink Floyd (without ever sounding like any Pink

  • Physical Graffiti

    • 10 out of 10
    • Led Zeppelin
    • This album bears every flavor of genius from the five records that came before. It is, I believe, the band's finest. With Physical Graffiti, Zep came raging back to their musical home territory -- har

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Little G’s Halloween, The Nine

Well, it’s closing in on All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, Halloween, or October 31, depending on your preference. By tradition sweets are handed out to miniature cowgirls, Supermen, Frankenstein Monsters, and fairy princesses by the handful.

If all that sugar isn’t enough to keep you or your youngsters bouncing off the walls for the next six months, you might try taking a peek at Little G’s Halloween, a short movie available as a free download from the iTunes Store.


Little G’s Halloween
Little G is a little ghost (hence the name) who has figured out the Halloween gig and is attempting to get his share.

This is a short movie, emphasis on short, so I won’t tell you more about the plot, such as it is, but I will say that you may need to spend more quality time with a toothbrush after watching. This little movie is so cutesy sweet I think I’m getting a cavity just thinking about it, and I don’t mean sweet in a good way.

My biggest complaint is the music, which tinkles and wafts through the movie as if it were a Christmas piece about some forgotten elf that Santa remembers at the last minute.

Swap out Christmas for Halloween and... Oops! I’ve given away the plot of Little G’s Halloween.

Ah well, no matter. It’s short, cute, and, if you turn down the sound (no words spoken), very watchable and worth the few minutes it take to download.

If you’ve already overdosed on sweets and you need something exciting to help you burn off that sugar rush you might try The Nine, a pilot for a new series on Wednesday nights this Fall on ABC.


The Nine

The first 10 or 12 minutes of the pilot episode does a great job in setting up the situation. The premise is interesting as well: during a botched bank robbery, nine hostages are taken by the bad guys. In the first 10 or so minutes you get a glimpse of the lives these nine people lead before their appointment with fate, each markedly different than the other.

As I watched the pilot, two things kept finding and flicking a raw nerve. The first nerve-flicker deals with the camera work, which is so jerky in many of the transition shots that I just wanted to turn the show off. I know this quick-zooming, then pull back and shaky panning is popular these days, but why does everyone feel the need to do it? I guess it’s suppose to add excitement or edginess to the show, but it wound up just being annoying. Fortunately, it’s not annoying enough to dismiss the whole show.

The second nerve-flicker is the bank manager. Not that he’s badly played by Chi McBride of Undercover Brother fame (he was The Chief), Mr. McBride does a fine job on the show. The problem is that he is the bank manager, and he is Black, with a daughter who acts like an overly tanned Buffy. I know there are Black bank managers, and Black Buffy wannabes, but, in this show, which takes place in a very nice bank in what looks like Beverly Hills, Mr. McBride’s character seems out of place. It seems that the producers are over compensating for the lack of ethnic faces in the show by putting the two in high positions. There are also two Hispanic tellers in the show, but their characters are about what you might expect in real life.

Am I being overly sensitive? Nah. As I said, Mr. McBride does a fine job in the pilot, and brings warmth and believability to an otherwise unbelievable character.

It would be better if the show got people beyond this stretch of unreality by addressing it openly instead of leaving it up to the audience to make heads or tails of it. For instance; there’s a scene where a distraught woman is complaining about some contents of her safety deposit box that are missing. When the bank manager appears to address the issue she doesn’t miss a beat, as if Black bank managers in Beverly Hills (or where ever) are a dime a dozen.

As I said, if the bank manager is to be Black then at least acknowledge it and let the audience get past it. As it is, at least to me, the bank manager and his daughter stand out like a raisins in a bowl of milk.

The Nine pilot is still definitely worth your time, so download it and enjoy.

Happy Halloween.

Other Treats for free at the iTunes Store:

Title Network/
Album
Free Episode/Artist Genre Description (According to iTunes)
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno NBC "Commercial Parodies" Comedy "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" features a nightly monologue and newsmaking guests, as well as ongoing comedy segments including Headlines, Pumpcast News, Phony Photo Booth, Jaywalking and Celebrity Jeopardy. The result is a unique look at today’s pop culture. Check out these hysterical Tonight Show commercial spoofs you won’t get anywhere else. Includes Dick Cheney Action Figure, Ambien, Bitch Slap n’ Kick Naomi, and The Killer Kamikaze Burger commercials!
Skyland Nicktoons Network "Dawn of a New day,
Pt 1"
Animated Drama Welcome to Babylonia, home of Lena, Mahad and their mother Mila. A peaceful haven in the tyranny of the Sphere, the family lives happily, but with a secret. Seijins (humans with telekinetic powers) are the most wanted people in Skyland, something Mila knows only too well, as both she and her daughter belong to this select group.

The children are unaware of their Mother’s secret until an incident at their home exposes both Mila and Lena and they are forced to flee. Knowing the Sphere will hunt them down; Mila sends her children away and stays behind to be captured by the Sphere. Lena and Mahad are sent away in a stolen enemy ship when suddenly they find themselves confronted by the Pirates.

The children are taken in by the band of pirates and learn even more of their parents past. They are escorted to their father’s last known secret headquarters only to find his famous Hyperion ship – seemingly waiting for Mahad to inherit. Unfortunately, they are intercepted by the evil Diwan, minion to Sphere leader Oslo and they are forced to battle their way out –They rejoin the pirates who invite the children to live in Puerto Angel where they will continue the fight to find their mother and defeat the evil Sphere. And so, the adventure begins.

Breaking Bonaduce
Season 2
VH1 "El Gringo Loco" Reality At the onset of Season Two, we see the impact that ’Breaking Bonaduce’ has had on Danny and Gretchen’s lives. In fact, the show is successful enough to get international distribution. So in order to keep the momentum moving forward, Danny agrees to help promote the show in Mexico City.

While there, he pays a visit to a dubbing house where ’Breaking Bonaduce’ is being translated into Spanish. But because Danny has never seen the show before, after viewing an episode from last season in which Gretchen has strippers at her birthday party, Danny goes into a tailspin.

Apocalypso Mew Apocalypso Rock In a music industry where things are too easily compartmentalized, the Danish quartet Mew is able to avoid classification.
Always Something Better
(Trentmoller Remix)
Trentmoller Trentmoller Rock Copenhagen’s Trentmoller creates dark, minimal house music that is as heavy on thought as it is on creating the bone-shaking polyehythms.

Vern Seward is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He’s been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.

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