Review: The Black Keys - El Camino

'El Camino' is The Black Key's wonderful seventh album. Hip hop mistro Danger Mouse is back producing and it is for the better, he produced their fifth album 'Attack & Release' and gave it a bit of an arty tinge. As with every Black Key's album 'El Camino' is full of awesome blues rock jams. It opens with the great first single 'Lonely Boy', and follows on with the not as great but still good 'Dead & Gone'. One of my highlights in this album was the future single 'Gold On The Ceiling' which is full of fuzzy guitars and and a sweet as organ riff. Another album highlight would be 'Little Black Submarines' which goes from a soft acoustic ballad to thrashing guitar halfway through and you'd swear Jimmy Page wrote it. Though the second half of the album is a little bit weaker it is still thoroughly enjoyable with songs like 'Sister', 'Stop Stop' and 'Nova Baby', along with many others. 'El Camino' would have to be one of my favourite albums of 2011. It's great driving music and every song is worth listening to.

8.5/10

Tomm

Review: Hugo

I will admit, I didn't have the highest expectations for Hugo, but these expectations were definitely exceeded. Hugo follows Hugo Cabret (played perfectly by Asa Butterfield), a 13-year-old orphan living in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. He owns an automaton, or a mechanical man, that is supposed to write with a pen. His father, a master clockmaker, found it in an old museum. His father had taught Hugo about clockmaking and they were fixing the automaton before Hugo's father died. Hugo went to live with his alcaholic uncle, who maintains the clocks in the train station. After his uncle leaves, Hugo is left to keep the clocks running, all the while stealing food to survive and parts for his automaton from a toy store without getting caught by the station inspector (played nicely by Sacha Baron Cohen). He makes friends with girl who also romes the station, but happens to be the god-daughter of the toy maker (Another great performance by Ben Kingsley). Together they uncover many secrets to the toy makers past and a link between the toy maker and Hugo's father.
Hugo is directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese, who won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director for Hugo. He really has done well with this. There is the odd innacuracy in this film that I won't go into, but it doesn't pull the quality down one bit. Also a must see in 3D.
Great visuals, great acting, great story...Great movie.

8.5/10

The Awesominator

Review: Foster the People - Torches

Foster the People have followed up their huge hit single "Pumped Up Kicks" with their debut album, Torches, and the rest of the album really follows suit. It's full of psychadelic, poppy tunes with heaps of synth, bass and some nice, strong beats. "Pumped Up Kicks", "Houdini" and "Miss You" are the best on the album, but in saying that, there really isn't a bad song on there. There a few songs, such as "Life on the Nickel", "Call It What You Want", "Don't Stop (Colour on the Walls)" and "Waste" that do have, for lack of a better word, awkward introductions, but these develop into some really catchy and original tunes. Foster the People have really done well in writing this record and bringing us one of the best albums of the year.

8.5/10

The Awesominator

Review: The Adventures of Tintin

When I went to see Tintin I had high hopes, you'd have to looking a the people behind  it (Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Edgar Wright, among many others). Those expectations were definitely met. From the moment you step into this world you know it's going to be something special.  The opening titles are great, they follow Tintin and Snowy around through some of their previous adventures in silhouette backed by a great theme from the master, John Williams. After the delightful intro we get into the story, when Tintin purchases a model ship things start to turn pear shaped as he finds out that the ship has the secret to finding a lot of treasure. Along the way Tintin meets Captain Haddock (Played very well by Andy Serkis) and they develop a friendship.  Haddock is where a lot of the laughs come from and most of them are hilarious. One of the only gripes I have with this movie is the way Tintin looks but I certainly get over that once the story pulled me in. All of the voice acting is great and level of detail amazing. Spielberg and Jackson have definitely pulled it off.

9/10

Tomm