In the early 90’s Pop-Punk music burst onto the music scene with a vengeance. The band was Green Day and the album was “Dookie”. Prior to Green Day’s explosion in 1994 punk music was a misunderstood underground genera of music. The most popular bands like Bad Religion, Nofx and others enjoyed moderate success. When Green Day released their 3rd album “Dookie” on a major label the game changed.
Obscure underground bands like The Offspring and Goldfinger also found success and then Blink 182 blindsided the scene with 1997’s “Dude Ranch” and 2000’s “Enema of the State”. Following the success of these two albums Pop-Punk was officially born and became a huge force in mainstream music. However, in 2003 Blink 182 released their self-titled album and broke up shortly there after. With the demise of Blink 182 signaled the end of Pop-Punk’s evolution as the genera blended and morphed into Scremo music. Effectively ending the rein of Pop-Punk.
Fast forward to 2013 until present day and Pop-Punk music is once again making waves in the underground while slowly but surely growing a wider audience. For all those late 90’s kids like myself this is an amazing time to be a fan of Pop-Punk music again. You may not be aware but there is a Renaissance of sorts happening in the underground.
The following videos are what we here at Newsert like to think of as prime examples of the new wave of Pop-Punk music. Many of these bands are still relatively unknown but we have confidence that given a little more time they could become house hold names soon.
Developers take note. This is how you release a game.
The new Destiny DLC “The Taken King” is dropping on September 15th. Many legions of diehard fans of Bungies latest IP are excited to finally get some fresh new content for the universe that they have grown to love. The release of “The Taken King” actually marks the beginning of Destiny year two. For many this is a time to rejoice in a new year of Destiny content. However for many gamers the release of “The Taken King” is just a reminder of the bad taste they had in their mouths after Destiny was released last year.
The initial release of Destiny saw a mixed bag of reviews for the new IP. Many saw it as a work in progress that would get better with time. Many saw it as a product stripped of much of its originally planned content in favor of breaking up much of the game in order to earn a quick buck via DLC downloads. In the end both sides are right in their own ways. Those that said Destiny would get better as time went on have been correct. Both “The Dark Below” and “House of Wolves” made the Destiny universe a much more fleshed out experience by adding both more story and strike mission content. On the other hand the side that says Destiny is a stripped down hollow shell of itself is also right, because we now know that much of “The Dark Below” and “House of Wolves” content was stripped from the base game.
However, it’s not just Bungie and Activision that have stripped their games down before in order to sell more content via DLC. This has actually been a common practice that started during the last generation and it has only gotten worse. Frequently titles are released the same day as a bunch of DLC add ons for the same game. Which makes it plain as day to the consumer that they are subtly getting ripped off with content that is probably already on the disc and is only unlocked when paying extra.
With an industry obsessed with making money by nickel and dimming consumers via DLC it is refreshing to see a developer like CD Project RED release a huge game like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Not only was the game released with hundreds of hours of on disc content but over the past few months there has also been over a dozen free updates that have added content that extends the games life and improves the games performance.
This kind of support is unheard of in todays industry and CD Project RED should be commended for doing such an amazing job of supporting a game post launch. Unlike Destiny the base game was loaded with over 200 hours of well made content. The game came out of the box rather polished for an open world game of this scale. Usually we would expect all kinds of game breaking bugs for a release this ambitious. However, the developers of The Witcher believe in and love their game and have treated it as such.
CD Project RED have given gamers a gift in 2015. The gift of being able to get lost in an amazing world that contains some of the best story telling and graphics ever seen in a game and on top of that they have continued to refine and add to the game when most gamers would have probably never once complained of the initial release. Other developers need to take note. This is how you release and support a game.
Tom Brady is having the worst week ever. Not only was his suspension not overturned but information from the NFL’s investigation leaked to the public that Brady destroyed his cell phone just before he was to turn it over to NFL investigators. Brady claims he always destroys his phone when he gets a new one, but the fact remains that Brady knew the NFL wanted that phone and he chose to destroy it anyways.
Today on Newsert we take a look at Tom Brady’s legacy. Is it forever tarnished or is this something he can overcome? As always be sure to leave your feed back in the comment section below. If you’re new to Newsert you can follow this blog and subscribe to our YouTube channel for videos every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
For those that don’t know I am a huge horror movie fan. Due to the hundreds of horror films I have seen in my life time I should probably admit that I have become a bit jaded over the past few years. I mean is it just me or has horror hit a rut the past few years? Sure there are the rare exceptions like the Insidious movies, Oculus and The Conjuring to name a few. But beyond that horror movies just haven’t been scary at all.
So in comes The Gallows and let me just say from the start I wanted to like this movie. For one it is filmed in Fresno CA which is the city I live in. Nothing cool ever happens in Fresno so I can’t lie that the hype the movie generated around this city kind of had me pumped up to see this movie. Not only that but I have to admit that the trailer for the gallows had me pumped. But let me tell you people, the trailer and its remake of smells like teen spirit is probably the only thing redeeming about this film.
From the very start The Gallows wants you to hate it. The first main character we are introduced to is a major asshole that spends his time taking video of him being an asshole to his drama club class mates. The dude is totally unlikable and deserves to be nominated for this years razie award for worst actor/character. But Then again on second thought maybe he was a good actor. I mean within 2 minutes I hated the guy and couldn’t wait for his demise so I guess he did something right.
Beyond the initial introduction of annoying character numb er one we are introduced to a totally unbelievable and unoriginal plot. In 1993 a student by the name of Charlie was accidentally hung during the schools production of The Gallows. Now fast forward to 2015 and the same school is doing the same play again which even includes having the same exact programs as the ill fated 93 production. Is it just me or does this plot seem like it was ripped straight from an RL Stine goosebumps novel? No wait…Fuck that Goosebumps books are scarier than this horse shit. Not only that but seriously why the fuck would a school redo a play that ended in the tragic death of one of its students. Talk about insensitive. Then again that is probably just whinny liberal me jumping on the insensitivity train that we all love to dick ride. So lets just move right along shall we?
The other characters in the film include a misunderstood jock that like the nerdy drama girl and the asshole we previously mentioned girlfriend who happens to be the daughter of Kathy Lee Gifford and Frank Gifford and I really have to question if their status helped her land this role, because she is fucking terrible. In actuality the entire cast is fucking terrible. Not only are they bad actors but all of their characters are annoying as shit.
Okay so enough ragging on the cast lets get onto the actual movie. The gallows follows in the footsteps of films like the blair witch project and paranormal activity. This means shaky camera work and jump scares galore. Now I know that found footage movies are kind of an acquired taste. Some people love them and others hate them. I fall into the camp of loving them as long as they are done well. The gallows isn’t done well. The run time of the film is an hour and 22 minutes and I swear to god that 70 minutes of that time is spent watching the camera pointed at the floor while mindless dumb fuck teenagers run around getting scared by loud noises.
This technique is the gallows idea of building tension. For the average 13 year old girl this might be an effective technique, for the rest of us including my 11 year old son who came to see the movie with me, this technique is only effective in two ways. One making you sick and two making you just wish the film was over.
Time after time this movie tries to scare the audience with loud noise jump scares. Doors slam, ladders fall, things drop on the floor and every time it is during a moment quiet moment where you assume that the film was trying to build tension. All this does is make the film totally predictable. When things get quiet something loud is going to happen. It’s not fucking scary. It’s just annoying. Not once in this sorry excuse for a horror film was I even remotely on the edge of my seat. And this has become a huge problem with modern horror movies. It just seems like all the new scary movies coming out these days try to pummel us with jump scare after jump scare. When are directors and writers going to realize that a well thought out story is what scares an audience, not making our ears bleed.
Now I don’t want to ruin the quote un quote “story” of this film because there really isn’t one but the end of this film is a total mess and really makes no sense in the context of the rest of the story. The only reason for the end scene is to try and setup sequels for what the makers of the film hope will be the next new horror icon. Charlie the hangman. That’s right folks, forget Jason, Freddy or Michel Myers. Charlie the hang man is here to bite your fucking fingers off. Seriously, Charlie? Charlie the hang man? What the fuck!!! For the life of me I don’t know Why the named him charlie. All I could think every time his name was mentioned was the classic you tube video charlie bit my finger. It’s as if the writers of this film decided that adhering to every generic horror cliche wasn’t enough. No, they needed to name their supposed new horror icon one of the stupidest most least fear inspiring names ever.
So in closing as far as my thoughts on the movie I just want to say avoid seeing this movie at a theater like the fucking plague. Do not make the mistake I made and waste hard earned cash on a movie that was obviously made on the cheap and released in the summer just to make warner bros a little bit of cash. The Gallows is fucking horrible. If there was a grade lower than an F I would give it that.
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