Sorry if this question's been asked before--I looked through the last four or five pages of entertainment threads and didn't see one. Anyway, what 5 albums would you absolutely have to have if you were forced to choose? Please write a brief comment about what you love about each disc if the muse strikes you.

1. LOW by David Bowie

I love Bowie's music in all it's chameleon-like phases. Low is where he really stopped caring about what his audience would expect and let his creativity and desire to experiment reign. The music still seems alien and futuristic even though it was released in 1977. My favorite cuts are probably the somber mostly-instrumentals like Warszawa, Art Decade, Subterraneans, etc.

2. A[B][I]NOTHER GREEN WORLD [/B]by Brian Eno

[/I]Low couldn't have been Low without Eno's creative contributions, and this record, the third solo disc from the ex-Synth player and all-around creative genius from Roxy Music shows another side to the ex-Glam Rocker. Ethereal, meditative and ambient instrumentals peppered with quirky and wonderfully bizarre vocal cuts. Released in 1975. My two favorite cuts are The Big Ship and Becalmed.

3. STRANDED by Roxy Music

This was the third Roxy Music album, and the first without Brian Eno. Bryan Ferry is one of my all-time favorite vocalists and songwriters. The songs on this album are among the group's best. I'd say this is Ferry's masterpiece. Released in 1973. My favorite cuts are Mother of Pearl, Just Like You, and A Song for Europe.

4. THE MICK KARN COLLECTOR'S EDITION by Mick Karn

This CD offers a sample of my all-time favorite bassist and an incredible composer. Mick Karn started out as bassist for the band Japan, which also introduced David Sylvian to the world, but Mick's compositions really shine when he started his solo career. His compositions are so funky and mysterious. This CD culls work from the early-mid 90's and is probably the best primer for anyone interested in hearing the most imaginative bassist in the world. Mick sadly passed away in 2011. This record was released in 1997. My favorite cuts are Bestial Cluster, Drawings We Have Lived, and There Was Not Anything But Nothing.

5. BLACK MARKET by Weather Report

I couldn't end the list without including one Jazz Fusion CD. I really love old school Fusion. Weather Report was one of the premeire Fusion outfits and probably best known for their composition Birdland, which was later covered by The Manhattan Transfer, but their best album, IMHO, is Black Market. Gibraltar alone is worth the price of the CD. This album is also the first Weather Report disc to feature Jaco Pastorius, a total bass monster. Released in 1976. My favorite cuts are Gibraltar, Black Market and Cannon Ball.

Anyone planning on seeing this? The previews look silly, but fun and the fact that it has an R Rating is appealing.

Toni, can you fix the spelling error in the thread title? Thanks, ma'am. You're the best LOL

As stoked as I was over the past year for Prometheus to come out, upon actually seeing it I felt like I was duped.

This is not to say that the story wasn't incredible, that it wasn't brilliantly directed by Ridley Scott and that it held not entertainment value whatsoever. Because it did, on all counts.

On the surface, Prometheus tells the story of a crew of scientists who discover a series of cave paintings that span millenia and continents, but each painting tells the same story. A story of giant men pointing to a far away galaxy. [SPOILER]It turns out the paintings are a map and an invitation to come and see where the genesis of man began.[/SPOILER]

So a team of scientists, funded by a private corporation (cue social commentary), head off to the distant planet and discover, upon getting there, that things are not what they seem and that something far more nefarious is at play than what they expected.

The rest of the film plays out in Scotts signature slow-burn fashion, culminating in a visceral descent into chaos and madness.

Where the film ultimately lets the viewer down is in the "is it or isn't it" an "ALIEN" prequel.

Even after watching the film, the answer is not quite clear.

Yes, it does take place in the ALIEN universe,[SPOILER] the crew lands on the very planet where Lt. Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo would eventually land, and[/SPOILER] there are hints of Xenomorph DNA spread throughout the screenplay.

But in the end, it seems like the script was never intended to be an "ALIEN" film in any form or fashion and that bits and pieces were tweaked to fit into the universe. Replace any sinister corporation with Weyland Enterprises, make any race of intelligent beings a "Space Jockey", have any random planet changed to an LV planet.

So in the end we are left with a stand-alone film with some "ALIEN" DNA peppered throughout.

The cast is exceptional, even the scenery chewing Charlize Theron manages to make a cold and calculating corporate drone seem more human. And speaking of seeming more human, there is of course the ever-present synthetic life form, this time named David and played with a dissociative disorder type personality by Michael Fassbender. He is clearly an android programmed to do one thing while harboring an almost human desire to do the opposite. Help or harm is the morality play he faces.

Noomi Rapace fills the shoes of the universe's strong female character who will undoubtedly become the next Lt. Ripley as she faces off against unforseen threats. Just as Ripley progressed from sure but timid to fight-for-your-life hero in the span of "ALIEN" so does Rapace in "Prometheus" including a arm rest clenching scene that defines the length the character will go in order to survive.

The one thing that is missing from this film is the quiet and unsettling moments that made "ALIEN" so damn scary. Say what you want, but "ALIEN" was a horror movie in space, it was not a sci-fi film. There was a sense of dread coupled with the fact that the crew was isolated and trapped in a ship adrift in space with something that wanted them dead.

"Prometheus" has expansive open sets, we are never left feeling that they don't have the opportunity to survive.

Clearly, there were two forces working on one script. Ridley Scott who wanted to return to his sci-fi roots and a studio/financier who saw an opportunity to relaunch a franchise. The end result is sort of a cop out as evidenced by a pathetic attempt to answer the "Is it or isn't it" question. In doing so they answer it definitively but alter the source material ever so slightly.

Still, "Prometheus" is a tense thriller and Ridley Scott shows that he can still deliver the sci-fi goods.

In the end, the film leaves us with unanswered questions and the start of a new franchise.

Kristen Stewart cannot act. I can see why she continued to have a job after the first Twilight movie was released - it'd be a little difficult to fire a lead actress in a movie series and bring in someone new. I question why they cast her in the first place, though. Why in the world did she get another acting job??

I went into the movie expecting a bad job from her so I wasn't disappointed in that respect.

Something seemed to be missing from this movie. I grew restless. It also seemed to me that some of the ideas were ripped from other movies. During the movie, I thought of Princess Bride (even asked a friend when we would see a ROUS), Excalibur, and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It seemed like the movie went overboard with hyping Snow White's purity and innocence.

Theron pulled off the wicked stepmother well enough. Hemsworth is pretty but not a strong actor. As long as he sticks to the pretty boy action roles, he'll do fine.

I'd give the movie a "meh".

I just heard that Ray Bradbury died at age 91. He meant a lot to me. Not because I write like Ray Bradbury—I couldn't if I tried. But I became a horror writer because of Ray Bradbury. His “The October Game” is a masterpiece of subtly growing menace, and one of the most perfectly focused short stories ever written, as effective today as it was when it appeared in Weird Tales.


I discovered it on a summer night in Hitchcock's 13 More Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV. I consider reading “The October Game” one of the pivotal moments in my life. Just thirteen at the time, I found the last line ("Then... some idiot turned on the lights.") confusing. I sat there, book in hand, puzzled, wondering at that crazy closing sentence. Why on earth—?


BLAM!


It hit me. I got it. And it blew me away, utterly and completely. Left me gasping. Lowered the temperature of the room by 20 degrees. And made me decide that someday, some way, I would write a story that would do unto others what this one had done unto me. I’m still trying.


Later on, Ray sort of disowned “The October Game.” I’ll bet he still appreciated the finesse of his younger self’s technique, but I think the subject matter appalled the older Ray. But the lesson this story pounds home is how less can be so much more. The oblique descriptions in the dark throughout the “game” are never visually realized by the author. The reader is left to construct them after the lights come on.


One of the wonderful things about writing fantastic fiction is the collegial atmosphere. You get to meet the heroes of your youth. I met Ray years ago. We corresponded. He started sending me his Christmas poems. I remember standing there December after December, agog that I was holding an original poem by Ray Bradbury. Sent to me. Me…on Ray Bradbury’s Christmas list. Me…on Ray freaking Bradbury’s Christmas list. Me…


Good bye, Ray. I know you're on Mars. Watch out for the rover.

Actually, I didn't realize he was still living. I remember reading Dandelion Wine and loving it as a kid. I think that's where I got the idea that summer required certain shoes (white keds). Link

I saw Moonrise Kingdom a couple of nights ago. It's quirky but kind of sweet and definitely worth seeing. There are some funny moments, but it's not a straight up comedy. It's a little hard to explain so I'll just let IMDB do it for me.

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I admit I was a little apprehensive when I heard about the new trilogy. I even had the thought that uggh "Repairman Jack" has become a bigger name then FPW and now that we're caught up to Nightworld the publisher wants more Jack so FPW might be trapped into writing Jack's stories for a bigger paycheck from Tor. Yes I am a little jaded and slightly cynical. But let me say it looks like FPW still believes in value received for value given because if he was paid more.... he delivered more.

Paul, it's been said on this sight before that you're "The Man" let me just one up that and say "Paul, you da Meng"!.... what? can't a guy like me who grow up in suburbia use that? To steal a quote "I'm taking it back..." what do you mean it was never mine to begin with? Sorry Julio.

I loved the Mikulski Brothers, Thank you for including them. Their first meeting with Jack is a story I've been wanting to read for years. Same with Julio and by extension Barney and Lou. Brilliant use of Paul Simon.

And the coincidences that just "happened" which long time readers see through to know the how, why, and who of it all aren't as forced....ok forced isn't the quite the right word but close. The last three books or so leading up to The Dark at The End haven't been stand alone works and build onto each other but the narrative tended to get derailed in constantly re-establishing what had happened previously. Cold City while not completely free of that (it does make a handful of references to the YA trilogy) is free enough to be a looser fun ride. And a book you can give to somebody who hasn't read a RJ novel before.

OK nits time. With the full understanding that I loved the book. Spelling/typos I actually didn't notice any. Paul-Did you get a new editor or proofreader? The phone.... While it was established early on the Jack didn't have a phone he ends up giving his number to Berle's guy making his "Lonnie" ID. It is later established that it's to a phone in his apartment and his neighbors answer and use the same phone. It probably should have been established earlier so the reader isn't jarred into thinking what phone? Also beg's the question who are Jack's neighbors and which ones are getting his messages? Also the term "Mobile Phone" was used in a conversation between Jack and Abe which in 1990 would've been the term used, later a "cell phone" was mentioned lead me to wonder when the term "cell phone" originated.

Movies: Jack's been since I first started reading him a movie guy. Not just modern blockbusters he even referenced Der Golem as a 22 year old. So I find it out of place for him as a 22 year old in 1990 not to have a TV in his apartment. Yes going by the painful sit-coms he watched on the road it's understandable not to have a TV for television....actually no in 1990 he'd want it for cable and the movie channels. So while he's working as a landscaper it works, once he's hoarding away money I see him buying a 27" tv and a laser-disc player. Small "nit" Predator 2 didn't open until Thanksgiving weekend 1990 so Cristin and Jack wouldn't have seen it yet. It's very likely if they were talking movies on their date they would've referenced the Godfather Part III, it opened Christmas Day and I remember talking about the trailer for a few months before it opened.

And of course like the greatest of 90's works the novel ends with a Diner scene... ok it has loose ends that aren't fully tied up and leaves the reader wanting that next book right away. But when don't we. Cold City is a great piece of the larger puzzle. It has just enough to stand on it's own but also links to the bigger picture. Thank You Paul.

I just started on All The Rage last night and today caught a CNN broadcast about the "Bath Salts" drug craze. I must lead a sheltered life, because I immediately thought to myself how crazy it was that people were actually snorting Epsom Salts--no wonder Bed, Bath and Beyond is always crowded LOL

I did some research and found out that Bath Salts are an umbrella title that refers to Mephedrone and MDPV, a stimulant and psychoactive drug. It's uses have been connected to: A cross-dressing goat killer, a priest-stabber, a man who believed he was being chased by electricity, a festive trespasser, a man who believed his 5-year-old was "possessed," etc., as well as the two recent cannibal incidents.

As I'd been absorbed in the plot of All The Rage, it just struck me as precient and oddly synchronistic. Of course, it's widely known that certain drugs can cause psychopathic behavior, but I hadn't been aware of this particular drug(s) and it's bizarre and deadly after-effect.