Music Video Friday: Metallica – The Unforgiven

Today’s video is Metallica’s The Unforgiven. The first one. The good one. Hell, I didn’t even know there was a third Unforgiven until I looked this video up on YouTube for this post.

I was a huge Metallica fan in my teen years but I have to admit that I started losing interest after the Load & Reload albums. I was out of high school by that point and moving on somewhat from my headbanging days but, quite frankly, those albums were also really shit compared to their previous ones. Well, I believe Garage, Inc. came out just after those? I did like that album a lot but that’s because I already loved the songs that were on the original Garage Days Re-Revisited (The Wait & The Small Hours rule). A few of the new covers on Garage, Inc. were okay too but, mostly, it was the older re-released covers that were the best. Man, I remember how excited I was in anticipation of Load & Reload being released, though! What a massive disappointment.

It was the same way with Guns N’ Roses, Use Your Illusion I & II. Remember those?! Ugh. Although, more decent singles actually came out of those than Metallica’s Load or Reload… Unbelievable! I far prefer Metallica. I was actually just getting over mono, which I was convinced would be the death of me (mono sucks), when those Guns N’ Roses albums came out & I dragged myself from my death bed to go buy those fuckers. Dammit. Those albums were SO not worth setting back my mono-recovery for a few more days.

But I digress. Massively. Because The Unforgiven is from Metallica’s last truly good (although very mainstream & not my actual favorite) album. Master Of Puppets is probably my favorite album, followed by Ride The Lightning. Sorry… Reminiscing again! I miss old school metal. Ah, but Metallica’s Black Album (or self-titled if you prefer) came along when I was the perfect age for it & it ended up being the one I’ve heard the most by far as my friends & I would drive around constantly listening to it. I remember a friend & I going to a local fair and headbanging to the album being played loudly on one of the rides. The carnies saw us and decided it would be fun to leave us on the ride for f*^king ages while I screamed at them to stop the damn ride because all the headbanging ended up making me sick. Those bastards. Ahh…. The teen years…. *sigh*

Okay – should I actually talk about the video for The Unforgiven? I suppose One is Metallica’s most famous video (I love that too – I’ll post it one of these Fridays) but I became quite obsessed with this one. Why? Because I was an idiot teenager with too much time on my hands & I loved to analyze lyrics & videos and to think I was all deep & shit. I thought The Unforgiven video was all deep & shit too. I could totally relate to my interpretation of this video and I was all “Metallica understand me & my teen angst, man!”. Or something. I dunno but I don’t have time for overanalyzing anything anymore. You lose interest in that in old age (and when you have kids). I’m too tired for that shit now!

But, watching this again now and clearly remembering every single second of it despite not seeing it in decades, I do still think it’s a fantastic video. I always saw it as being about lonliness & desperately trying to reach out & open up to someone but never being able to. How teen angst is that! But according to Wikipedia:

“The song deals with the theme of the struggle of the individual against the efforts of those who would subjugate him.”

Bullshit. I like my interpretation better. Maybe that’s the meaning of the lyrics but not so much the video. There was a longer 11 1/2 minute version of the video but I don’t think the extra bits added to the story (you can watch that HERE if you want). Then of course there was The Unforgiven II from Reload and I appreciate the similar theme to that video (HERE) but it doesn’t make much sense plus I was too old by that point to care to spend time analyzing it. Finally, there’s The Unforgiven III, which I can’t seem to find a video for other than one showing clips of the first two. Does anyone know if one exists?

Well, this was a nice little trip down memory lane but it’s time for me to go take out my dentures & listen to Adele. Ha! Just kidding. Adele sucks. Here’s The Unforgiven video. Finally.

My Top Ten Color Songs

I’ve been meaning to do this list for a while but there are just SO many songs with colors in the title. I decided to not go overboard like when I did My Top Ten Devil & Hell Songs and spent ages making sure I hadn’t missed any favorites with “Devil” or “Hell” in the title. There are too many color songs (or colour in the UK – I wish autocorrect would stop correcting me) so I’ve not spent ages doing an exhaustive list and am sure I’ve missed a favorite that’ll have me kicking myself.

However, there are too many to narrow it down to only ten so I’ll count down from 20 to my favorite. And, okay – I have honorable mentions too. Sorry! 😉 But I’ve still left out loads of songs. Would love to hear what other Color Songs are the favorites of fellow bloggers!

Here are My Top Ten Songs With Colors In The Title (based, of course, on how much I like the song):

My Top 20:

20. Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones
19. Red Alert by Basement Jaxx
18. Rainbow Connection by Kermit
17. Black History Month by Death From Above 1979
16. Little Black Submarines by The Black Keys
15. White Unicorn by Wolfmother
14. Blackbird by The Beatles
13. Behind Blue Eyes by The Who
12. Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix
11. White Room by Cream

My Top Ten:

10. Back In Black by AC/DC

9. Crimson And Clover by Tommy James & The Shondells

8. Pretty In Pink by The Psychedelic Furs

7. Mr Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra

6. Blue Monday by New Order

5. Fade To Black by Metallica

4. Rainbow In The Dark by Dio

3. Red Rain by Peter Gabriel

2. Golden Years by David Bowie

1. Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath

By the way – I already had the argument with the hubby on if “Rainbow” could be included or not. As always, I won. It’s my blog, after all. 😉 I’ll now do my best to not list 1,000 honorable mentions…

Honorable Mentions:

– Green Onions by Booker T. & The M.G.’s
– White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It) by Grandmaster & Melle Mel
– Fool’s Gold by The Stone Roses
– Fade To Grey by Visage
– Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan
– White Wedding by Billy Idol
– Black by Pearl Jam
– Golden Brown by The Stranglers
– Green Hell by Misfits
– Gold Lion by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
– Violet by Hole
– White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane
– Colours by Donovan (also, Turquoise & Mellow Yellow…)

Metallica Erupt In Through The Never Trailer

Link: Rolling Stone

From article:

A grisly car crash followed by an all-out riot may not be what you expected to see in a Metallica 3D concert film, but that’s exactly how the new trailer for Metallica Through the Never opens. Helmed by Hungarian director Nimród Antal, the film was said to blend concert footage from three shows filmed in Vancouver last August with a narrative arc featuring the actor Dane DeHaan playing a fictional member of the band’s road crew.

Hmm. Dunno. I’ll probably watch it – I was a big Metallica fan in the 80s. Here’s a list of My Top Five Metallica Songs. 🙂

Through The Never trailer:

The Place Beyond The Pines (2012) Review

Seriously – this is a 2012 movie??

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Starring:
Ryan Gosling
Bradley Cooper
Eva Mendes
Dane DeHaan
Emory Cohen
Ray Liotta
Ben Mendelsohn
Rose Byrne
Mahershala Ali
Bruce Greenwood
Harris Yulin

Music By: Mike Patton. That’s right – of Faith No More! Cool. Noticed his name in the credits and wanted to make sure to mention him – love Faith No More. And… Anyone remember Mr Bungle?? Ha!

Plot:

I’m not sure if I should go into the plot much. The way they are marketing this film, by only really focusing on Ryan Gosling, is a bit misleading. Ryan Gosling plays Luke Glanton, a motorcycle stuntman. While in town with a travelling fair he works for, he sees an ex-lover of his (Romina, played by Eva Mendes). Luke learns that Romina’s one-year-old son is his. Luke decides to stay in town and help to raise his son even though Romina has moved on & is with another man. He gets a job at an auto repair shop but, when that doesn’t earn him enough money to help his son, he turns to robbing banks. Luke soon becomes addicted to this “easy” way of getting money.

This is all pretty much everything I read about before seeing the film. But there’s MUCH more to the movie than just this one story about Luke. So don’t go to it expecting the entire movie to just be about Ryan Gosling going on a bank-robbing spree. The movie is better than just that.

I really enjoyed this movie. My hubby didn’t so much. He thinks it’s because I have the hots for Gosling but I don’t think that has anything to do with it. He’s still hot, even with some really ugly tattoos and a Metallica t-shirt, but he certainly doesn’t do it for me as much in this film as in others. And he’s good in this, as always, but he doesn’t steal the whole show. His character isn’t quite as strong as in other films – he was much deeper in things like Lars And The Real Girl & Half Nelson and he was “cooler” and more mysterious in Drive. The director, Derek Cianfrance, also did Blue Valentine. I still haven’t fully decided if I prefer that or Pines but I do think Gosling’s character was more well-developed in Valentine & he delivered a better performance. But, overall, Pines is probably a more “entertaining” film with a better story as opposed to Valentine which is more about the performances than the story.

If you love Drive, you MIGHT like Pines but don’t go to it expecting it to be anything like it. It’s very different. There was a bit of a hoodie at our screening – he did stay for the whole thing but he & his woman kept talking to each other about being bored. This is where I always get a bit snobby and say things like “people need to find a little something out about a movie before going to it!” but to be fair, although I knew what kind of movie it was as I’m a movie lover & do my research, I do think they’re making this movie look a little too much like another Drive. As to be expected as it’s the same director, it’s much more like Blue Valentine. It’s a drama. It has a slow pace. It IS a little overlong (as much as I enjoyed it I did feel it could have been cut down by half an hour). It’s my kind of thing, though. It’s not going to be for everyone.

As for the stories (as I said, there’s more to it than just the story of Luke and this has been hinted at in enough reviews that I don’t think I’m spoiling anything), they were all good but I especially liked the first one & the final one. The final one was a complete surprise as I knew nothing at all about that one before seeing the film. I think I felt the most for the characters in the final bit & found my heart pounding a little when there were a couple of times where you really didn’t know what was going to happen to them. I thought all the characters in the whole film felt realistic as well – these seemed like real people because I thought they acted in ways that real-life people in the same situations may behave (not as common in movies as it should be!). As it’s marketed in that Drive kind of way, I thought it would be really violent. It’s not. There were a few times where I thought it might suddenly get crazy-Drive-level-violent but it thankfully didn’t. Not saying I don’t like Drive – I love it. But this film didn’t feel the need to up the violence or the action or to start acting all “cool”. It kept things slow & steady but it still had me on the edge of my seat at the end in a similar way to how I felt while watching American History X. Not sure why this comparison popped into my head while watching Pines – I think the tension I felt toward the end was quite similar (although American History X is definitely a better film).

A quick mention of the performances: As I said, Gosling is good as always but it’s not his strongest role. Eva Mendes is good as is Mahershala Ali, who plays her boyfriend. I liked the character Ben Mendelsohn plays – the owner of the body shop where Gosling works. Ray Liotta is… sooooo Ray Liotta! So, you’ll be happy if you like Ray Liotta but I found it quite disappointing that he’s playing the same role here that he ALWAYS plays. In fact, that’s probably the thing I liked least about this film. Dane DeHaan also plays a very similar character to one he’s played before but he’s very good at that sort of role and I thought he was very good in this – he’s possibly one of the best things about this movie, actually. For me the most pleasant surprise was probably Bradley Cooper, though. He plays a rookie cop. This is also widely known about the plot (if there’s a bank robber there has to be a cop!) but they REALLY don’t focus much on him in the trailers & things I’d seen beforehand. It’s a big role! Honestly, the only thing I’d really seen him in was The Hangover so, naturally, I wasn’t overly impressed with him. (The Hangover isn’t really my type of thing). But then he was suddenly up for an Oscar! (I really do want to see Silver Linings Playbook). So, yeah – turns out he can act. I thought he was good as the rookie cop who’s a bit unsure of himself.

Summary: I liked this a lot but it’s not for everyone. It’s a slow-paced drama with some very good performances but not any really amazing ones. It’s a little overlong but has a good sense of growing tension, especially at the end, which kept me very gripped. And I really cared about most of the characters. Good drama. I recommend it. But remember it is NOTHING like Drive. Overall, though, something holds this movie back from being excellent instead of just very good. No, I don’t know what that something is. If I knew, I’d be the one making the movies! 🙂

My Rating: 8/10

Mike Patton – The Snow Angel

The Ryan Gosling Project

My Top Five Metallica Songs

My Top Five Metallica Songs

In honor of Ryan Gosling’s Metallica – Ride The Lightning t-shirt in The Place Beyond The Pines (Good movie – read my review HERE), I thought I’d post my Top Five Metallica songs. I’d like to point out that I’ve mellowed out now. My metal days are over & I can’t say I’ve listened to Metallica much since about 1992. But I did love them at the time. Okay… I do admit that all of these are on my iPod so I may be fibbing a little.

1. Master Of Puppets
2. One
3. Fade To Black
4. Seek & Destroy
5. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)

Honorable Mentions:

Battery
The Thing That Should Not Be
For Whom The Bell Tolls

And I love these (more than some of those above) but figured they shouldn’t be in the top five as they’re covers:

The Small Hours
The Wait
Am I Evil?
Die, Die My Darling (yes I like the Misfits one)

Sexy Ryan Gosling rocking the metalhead look:

And in searching for the Ryan Gosling photo, I found this one. Ha! Ties in to my recent post about Disney Princesses, I guess. I’m digging Alice In Wonderland’s new look. I think all the Disney girls need to get themselves some tattoos & piercings.