In Do the Shuffle, one of our team members puts their iPod on shuffle and makes a playlist out of the first ten songs that play. It’s a great way to find new music or rediscover the old stuff. Enjoy!
“They got a n**ga shedding tears/ reminiscin’ on my past fears/Cause shit was hectic for me last year”. And so marks the beginning of the 2014-2015 Broadway season. As opening lyrics go, it’s about as far from “The hills are alive, with the sound of music” as one can go. And that is precisely what the ambitious, if flawed, Holler If Ya Hear Me intends.
The first sign that this production is willing to buck tradition greets the audience upon entering the Palace Theatre: Close to 600 seats have been removed from the massive orchestra section. This accommodates an extended stage and stadium seating stretching to the mezzanine. The design pitches the audience into the action onstage. Those skeptical of this concept should have no fear. It is actually one of the best decisions director Kenny Leon brings to the show, which is a tad too intimate for the house it occupies.
The songs (and poetry) by Tupac Shakur however, are lyrically rich and hard hitting enough to energize the large crowd. Purist fans will appreciate that the creative team has not shied away from the language or tone of the music in the least. This jukebox musical is not for Baby Boomers, and the show makes no apologies or concessions in this regard.
In a musical crafted from the themes in the late rapper’s work it is no surprise the story centers on a tragic tale of drugs and violence. The musical opens with John (powerful spoken word artist Saul Williams) returning to city life after a stint in prison. Jail time has spurred him to leave behind the world of drug dealing and instead search for honest work at his friends’ auto shop. Our other central figure is Vertus (Christopher Jackson), who has taken up dealing while John was behind bars. During this time Vertus has also won over John’s once girlfriend Corrine (Saycon Sengbloh, in strong voice). The neighborhood is quickly thrown into chaos and despair when an (un-seen) gang shoots down Vertus’ brother Benny. Our protagonists gather their neighborhood friends and arm themselves with determination and guns to avenge their fallen friend.
This is where the trouble starts, for both the characters and the audience. Benny has spoken perhaps two lines in one crowded scene before his off-stage demise. Yet this death is what thrusts the plot into motion. It took me a good ten minutes to figure out who this Benny was that everyone was so upset about. It wasn’t until his mother (a vastly underutilized Tonya Pinkins) emerged in tears, that I realized he was her son and Vertus’ brother. It’s rather difficult for the audience to invest in a character we don’t know and a conflict that unfolds mostly off-stage.
The book by Todd Kreidler is largely at fault here. It takes the basic themes of Shakur’s lyrics as inspiration for its inner city story, but fails to expand on them with any originality. The result is a rather heavy handed, paint-by-numbers message about the unending cycle of violence in poor, black neighborhoods. Should the group take on the typical “eye for an eye” mentality, or rise above the gang warfare that plagues their surroundings? Character development is also frequently sabotaged in an effort to shoehorn popular songs onto the stage.
Luckily the vocally robust cast is adept at interpreting Shakur’s rhymes. The smooth voiced Jackson manages to be compelling throughout. Saul Williams is a force of nature when he spits Shakur’s signature lyrics, particularly in the fiery showstopper “Me Against the World”. And even though her character is largely in the play just so “Unconditional Love” can make an appearance, Sengbloh belts the song like it’s her last day on Earth. I wish the story knew what to do with Tonya Pinkins’ mother figure, as the Tony winner lends a much needed dose of gravitas to the proceedings.
Tony winning director Kenny Leon has shown tremendous skill helming straight plays on the Great White Way. But, his first foray into a musical seems less sure-footed. Some musical numbers inspire awe and thunderous applause. The act one closer (and title song) is a tremendous showcase of ferocity for Saul Williams and the ensemble, with invigorating stage movement. On the flip side, many other moments have no life or stakes in the stage direction. An odd dichotomy emerges between staging that is either truly inspired or mostly forgettable.
A similar problem is found in the choreography by Wayne Cilento. While expertly performed by talented dancers who are clearly having a blast, it frequently fails to direct the audience’s eyes to where the main action is happening. There is also a turn table, because…I’m not really sure. Luckily, the lighting design (Mike Baldassari) and projections (Zachary Borovary) are gorgeous and well implemented to aid the storytelling.
Ultimately, Holler if Ya Hear Me feels like something that needed more time to develop. There is promise of a truly great musical in here. But as it stands, for every flash of brilliance or innovation, there is another of confusion. I applaud the producers and creative team for bringing a rap musical to Broadway and remaining true to the source material. If only the book matched the passion of Tupac’s music.
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Earlier, this category seemed like an open and shut case. Cicely Tyson (The Trip to Bountiful) was the undisputed frontrunner for the role that won her the Tony for her performance in the 2013 revival of this classic play. However, when critics awarded Jessica Lange (American Horror Story: Coven), which doesn’t seem important, but for critics to get a behind a performance that seems to have lost a lot of its buzz and a show that lacked acclaim is shocking.
Then there is Minnie Driver (Return to Zero), who turned in a phenomenal performance and Helena Bonham Carter (Burton and Taylor), whose turn as Elizabeth Taylor was a career high. It seems like a toss up now, but I think the nominees are set. I am prepared for an upset with Rebecca Ferguson (The White Queen) thrown in the mix possibly pushing out one of the bottom 3 ladies. 1. Cicely Tyson, The Trip to Bountiful 2. Jessica Lange, American Horror Story: Coven 3. Helena Bonham Carter, Burton and Taylor 4. Sarah Paulson, American Horror Story: Coven 5. Minnie Driver, Return to Zero 6. Whoopi Goldberg, A Day Late and a Dollar Short
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7. Rebecca Ferguson, The White Queen 8. Toni Collette, Hostages
In our newest segment, one of our team members puts their iPod on shuffle and makes a playlist out of the first ten songs to play. It’s a great way to find new music or rediscover the old stuff.
In Do the Shuffle, one of our team members puts their iPod on shuffle and makes a playlist out of the first ten songs that play. It’s a great way to find new music or rediscover the old stuff. Enjoy!
“Operating” | Hunter Hunted
“Treetops” | Beat Radio
“Solar Eclipse” | Seahaven
“Cycle” | Beck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJzJmUGx5oM
“Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now” | The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
We just hit 10,000 views on the website in 2 months. Thank you from everyone on the Smash Cut team. Here is a video message from Editor-in-Chief Karl Delossantos!!
If you want to talk about musical progression by album, I don’t think there’s a better example than Southend-on-Sea’s The Horrors. Since their debut, these guys have been changing up their style, experimenting with new ideas, expanding their instrumentation prowess, and overall having no comfort zone. They’ve gone through straight creepy, haunted house garage punk on Strange House, noisy and wavy shoegaze/post-punk on Primary Colours, and Tame Impala-like psychedelic pop and rock on Skying. I’ve been waiting on this release since it’s announcement back in early 2013, it’s been pushed back 15 months and now I’ve got the chance to see what it has to offer.
Within the first burst of sound that comes from “Chasing Shadows”, you hear that the sound has been slightly altered from Skying with the synthesizers being the prominent instruments rather than the traditional drums, bass, and guitar. It takes a while to get into the opener, which is a give-or-take thing when it comes to intros, but when it finally builds up, it delivers. Throughout the album there are sounds that are familiar from other artists that these guys add in rather well. Strums reminiscent of 70’s and 80’s krautrock, cascading synths from Lonerism, and simple but grooving basslines from bands like Peace.
“First Day of Spring” and “In And Out of Sight” have that energy that The Horrors have been known for since Primary Colours and paired up with the danceable synths that come right out of a Cut Copy B-Side, it’s refreshing to hear them not be so somber. “I See You”, the lead single is bursting with pop potential as a summer anthem. There is so much 80’s cheese that it’s perfect for today’s hipster audiences. “Mine and Yours” has a really cool wah-wah guitar sound that’s completely psychedelic and packs a lot of noise in a short song. It’s like what Dumbo Gets Mad’s LAST ALBUM should’ve been. “Sleepwalk” is a beautiful, soft rock closer that leaves you falling back to bed with a catchy chorus. Most of these songs are very well written and have their own unique production tricks, but there are a few elements of each that either don’t sit well or are kind of shocking to hear.
For example, “I See You” would have to be cut down to a radio edit because of the 3 minute outro that detracts from the fun rather than adds to it. “Falling Star” is enjoyable but the production is a bit wonky at times with the effects on the main guitar lead. It’s a cool sound, but I don’t think it would go over very well with a lot of listeners. A moment that freaked me out was when “Jealous Sun” started and it sounded like a discount My Bloody Valentine’s “I Only Said”. The chorus on “Jealous Sun” is great, but the rest of it seems like a rehashed shoegaze sound, relaxing but it’s been done. There are also times on here where I wished I heard less of Faris’ vocals. “Change Your Mind” would be nice if they had the guy from Film School do the vocals, but it doesn’t fit Faris. Slow and sultry isn’t his style, especially once you’ve heard “Sheena is a Parasite”.
Final Verdict: The album is very solid even with the little nitpicks of the influences on it’s sleeve. The tracks are dreamy and it didn’t stray too far away from Skying, which was one of my favorite albums of 2011. The synthesizer leads and production tricks bring it together, making the album feel a lot grander. It’s as if this dream pop is inducing a dream of flying cities and bright bursting lights and gorgeous cloudscapes that you remember just as you wake up and you can’t wait to write it down. If you want to relax, if you want to dance, if you want to escape to somewhere while taking a walk, if you want nostalgia, this album has it all and it was well worth the wait, despite its flaws.
NOTE: Tackling this album as a whole would be insane. The entire album with both discs is over 4 hours long, so I decided to put them up as their own individual discs and compare them later. But, the show must go on, and this is what I have to say about disc one.
I didn’t think I’d like anything released by house artists since turning on the radio lately, but Deadmau5 always comes out and surprises me. As much as I dislike the overplayed hype of EDM on z100 or any other top 100 station, it’s nice to see some diversity album-wise. I haven’t heard most of while (1<2) on the radio lately, instead I’ve heard some David Guetta and that one song from Disclosure but not the rest of the album (seriously guys, come on, Settle is godlike), but no real notoriety for Deadmau5. And if this first disc doesn’t show you what mainstream house producers are capable of… I don’t know what to tell you.
The first disc starts off with your standard house jams like “Avarita” and “My Pet Coelacanth” just to get you into the mood, but when you hear his remix of “Ice Age” by How to Destroy Angels you know he means business. It’s a lot different from these house jams but still has a subtle intensity that slowly fills the track. The varied instrumentation and electronic blips seems more like a Boards of Canada remix rather than what we’ve come to expect from the mau5. “Infra Turbo Pigcart Racer” jumps straight back into the fun before it takes a dark turn with “Terrors in My Head” and “Creep”, which is a gorgeous piano-led electronic saunter through dark glitches and bitcrushed snares. This is the saddest I’ve seen Deadmau5, and he knows how to convey that emotion well in his music.
The sadness continues as “Somewhere Up Here” comes into play, but the piano seems to lighten up the mood, like finding a light at the end of the tunnel and being mystified on what you’ve stumbled upon. It’s slow, it grooves, and it’s sexy with the voices whispering incoherently in the background. “Phantoms Can’t Hang” is a good single for those just getting into electronica and house music, but to be honest, I’m not a huge fan of it. But the final track “Gula” is a great mixture of what we’ve heard from this disc. Smooth piano and the most booming bass this disc has to offer, it’s the borderline of sanity and insanity.
Final Verdict: Although it lacks some of the more intense moments that >insert album title here< had, it makes up for it by the sheer diverse moments that are on the first part. The piano parts that are scattered throughout do give a sense of dread and somber seclusion, but it’s nice to hear it have the pacing of a traditional album and still be interesting for house artist today. I don’t know what the next disc will bring, but I’m hoping for the best.
When asked to describe himself as an artist, Ed Sheeran proudly admitted to being an “acoustic balladeer who sings soppy love songs to teenage girls”. Yet in the same interview with The Telegraph, he also proclaims that he “doesn’t make music for critics”. These two statements seem to conflict with each other, and the latter seems to be an attempt to justify his artistic credibility for writing the teeny bopper love songs he’s know for. Yet, with the English singer-songwriter’s sophomore release, x, he is able to achieve the best of both worlds.
To recap, it’s been three years since his breakout debut album, +. The artfully minimalistic pop album eventually hit the top of the charts worldwide, spawning hits such as “Lego House”, and the Grammy-nominated “The A Team”. He spent this time touring America and the world both as an opening act to huge artists such as Taylor Swift and headlining a tour of major venues. He also casually penned a few hits for Ms. Swift and One Direction. Far from a lucky streak, this new album continues the trend of success.
The album’s lead single, “Sing” is an infectiously groove that clearly takes its influence from 70’s funk and disco groups (the Nile Rogers influence is strong in this one). It’s immediately obvious that this is the production work of Pharrell, the king of musical throwback Thursdays. This is the fourth major hit that Mr. Williams has been involved in within the past year, and it features all the characteristics of his work: groovy rhythm work, insanely catchy vocal hooks, and ultra-tight harmonies. As always, it’s a perfect execution of reviving musical stylings that have been relatively dead within mainstream pop for decades now.
Throughout the rest of the album, Sheeran proves that he has a wide variety of influences, giving reminders of past artists while staying original to himself. There’s the bluesy “Thinking Out Loud”, sounding like a cut tossed from a John Mayer album, soulful guitar solo included. “Runaway” takes it’s influences from N’ Sync and the Backstreet Boys, yet “Don’t” is reminiscent of the Arctic Monkeys. “The Man” sees him rapping about road life a la Eminem, and pulling it off surprisingly well. And I can’t put my finger exactly on why, but the brooding “Nina” seems to call out to Toto.
It’s almost an insult to just refer to Sheeran as a singer-songwriter, because he’s a fairly impressive guitarist in his own right. As with his previous album most of the instruments on the album were played either by Sheeran himself, or producer Jake Gosling. “Tenerife Sea” and “Bloodstream” both feature some fancy fretwork; nothing overly complicated, yet still impressive by pop’s standards. Of course, he is really able to show off in live performances, creating lush backing tracks using just his voice, his guitar, and a looping pedal (check out the live version of “Don’t”, which completely blows away the studio version that was amazing in it’s own right).
X | Ed Sheeren
Of course, there are quite a few overdubs on the album, however these are kept in check to create a vibrant yet minimalistic soundscape. This is clearly the touch of Rick Rubin, the third major producer involved in the album. It’s a smart move that helps the album stand out from the field of overproduced electronic-pop that is dominating the charts nowadays.
Arguably the most important part of a pop song is the lyrics; they mainly just need to be catchy, no real meaning needed. While x’s lyrics are far from deep philosophical meanderings, they are able to comment on relationships and sex without being overly cheesy, sappy, or clichéd.
The one major flaw of this album is that the performances are a tad cold and too perfect. I wasn’t able to detect any notable auto-tune on Ed’s voice, which is a good thing. And while the main instrumentation on show are acoustic guitars, pianos, and vocals, the performances are polished slick (including an annoyingly over-compressed piano on “Nina”). A bit more edge and slight imperfections would really amplify the more dramatic moments in the music.
Yet despite this, Ed Sheeran has made an album that exceeded expectations for him. Coming off of a successful first album, he lived up to the hype and delivered a solid pop album that should stand up on its own for many years to come. The minimalistic yet varied production marries perfectly simplistic and meaningful lyrics to create a memorable collection of songs that is well worth a listen.
Writing categories are some of my favorite categories in all entertainment awards shows, but they really do rule supreme for me at the Emmys. Why? Because TV writing can be so good and emotionally taxing, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, but it can also absolutely suck. So any award that appreciates good writing is one that I’m for.
This year in Writing for a Drama there is a mixed bag of returners and new shows, but there are a couple wild cards that could throw a wrench into the category.
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1. “Ozymandias”, Breaking Bad (Written by Moira Walley-Beckett): If this wasn’t one of the greatest episodes of drama to hit the small screen, then I don’t know what is. Further than that, considering the show received two nominations in this category last year despite a 4 year drought shows me that voters are paying attention and if they know what’s good for them, this episode is solidly in first place. 2. “Waterloo”, Mad Men (Written by Matthew Weiner): This one is pretty much a hunch. If Mad Men is able to get back into this category, which they dominated until last year, it’s probably going to have to be a big episode. That’s why I’m thinking the season finale could be it. It probably doesn’t hurt that Matthew Weiner penned the episode. 3. “The Last Call”, The Good Wife (Written by Robert and Michelle King): For some reason they didn’t submit the superior “Hitting the Fan” for consideration, which I could have seen winning. While this episode is good, they’re just holding on to a nomination now. 4. “The Long Bright Dark”, True Detective (Written by Nic Pizzolato): If True Detective makes as big a splash at the Emmys as we think it will, then it’s just natural that their Pilot is nominated here. 5. “The Children”, Game of Thrones (Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss): The decision to again only submit one episode is probably going to work in favor for Game of Thrones, especially with their most buzzed about season yet. 6. “Pilot”, Masters of Sex (Written by Michelle Ashford): The Emmys are suckers for Pilots and I think in any other year Masters of Sex would be nominated in series, but this is a nice consolation prize. 7. “Felina”, Breaking Bad (Written by Vince Gilligan): If the Emmys go crazy over the show again, it’s possible that they up their writing nominations from two to three. If that’s the case, I think the series finale is a safe bet. 8. “Confessions”, Breaking Bad (Written by Gennifer Hutchison): Of all the memorable episodes from the final season of Breaking Bad, the “Confessions” confession tape has to be one of the most memorable scenes. It also doesn’t hurt that the episode won the WGA award for Best Drama Episode.
It looks like we have the first leaked Pilot of the fall season. This time, it’s the CW’s The Flash. The show is a spinoff of their highly successful Arrow series, this time following Barry Allen, better known as The Flash. To respect the network I will not be posting a full review until the series premieres, but I will do a quick rundown of what I think worked, didn’t, and whether you should give the series a chance.
First of all, the series is no where near as dark as its counterpart Arrow. The episode is littered with wonderfully corny one-liners and somewhat ridiculous situations, but it closely follows the superhero origin road map with all the important plot points. The style of writing gets a bit old after a while. It’s hard to appreciate the campiness after a while, but I did find a large majority of it entertaining.
The series does have wonderful pacing that makes the episode go by in a flash (lame joke of the day). The visual effects are strong and the overall craft is there. I think everything else will come in time.
While Grant Gustin is an endearing lead and has a wonderful little scene at the end of the episode that allows him to emote, there are some questionable lines that come off a bit amateurish. I think that he’ll eventually settle in, but I did see some weakness there. Actually, overall the acting was underwhelming, but I suppose that was expected. Some of it comes from the campiness of the script, but it did get old after a while.
As for the question of should you watch it, I will say that if you enjoyed Arrow or even Smallville that this might be a series for you to look at. The stereotypical superhero plot lines still do wonders here and Barry Allen’s awkward charm will reel you in. However, the next few episodes will be a huge test to see how the series sustains those plot lines, while still be surprising.
Girl Meets World is hard to review. I don’t mean that it’s particularly complicated, because it isn’t. I don’t mean that anything is difficult to discuss, because it’s not. But every time I try to talk about what I like and don’t like, I end up just curling up in a little fanboy ball and being happy seeing Cory and Topanga back on screen. So, with that in mind, let’s get to it.
For those of you who need to be brought up to date, Girl Meets World is a new series airing on the Disney Channel, and is a direct sequel to the 90’s sitcom classic, Boy Meets World. If you haven’t watched Boy Meets World, go watch it. No, like right now. Yes, all seven seasons. The review will still be here when you get back.
…You all caught up? Good, because if you weren’t a fan of Boy Meets World, then there’s probably not a lot worth watching in this pilot. It’s really reminiscent of early BMW, very earnest and hopeful. The pilot episode finds main character Riley Matthews (played by an eerily appropriate-looking Rowan Blanchard) being passed the torch by her father, Cory Matthews (a returning Ben Savage), picking up right where we left off at the end of Boy Meets World, with Cory figuring out what the title meant. She and her best friend, Shawn Hunter sound-alike Maya Hart, played by a stellar Sabrina Carpenter, pull a scheme straight out of early Boy Meets World and stage a revolution in Cory’s classroom, fighting against the unfairness of homework. Everything plays out exactly how you’d expect: mistakes are made, lessons are learned, everyone ends up better people.
It’s a children’s show. It’s about what I expected the plotline to be, especially for a pilot episode. What makes this special is how much love the creators clearly have for the source material. Everything from the paper airplane in the opening credits to the closing riff is lifted from Boy Meets World and used in a new way. We even have a statue in John Quincy Adams middle school in the same place that it was in Boy Meets World’s John Adams. The family dynamic is still there, as is the classroom dynamic, complete with a stable of (mostly) interesting characters, like Farkle Minkus, who watchers of Boy Meets World will recognize as the son of Cory Matthews’ childhood foe, Minkus, who is supposedly going to be making a cameo in an upcoming episode. We even get someone that might fulfill the neighborly Feeny role in Jackée Harry’s Evelyn Rand, delivering wisdom unexpectedly on the subway.
This is not to say that the show doesn’t have its flaws. Lucas Friar, Riley’s “love interest”, is flat and almost completely without any characterization in this pilot episode. Likewise for Cory’s intervention in Riley’s romantic life. Part of the charm of Boy Meets World is that the adults were never directly interfering. They would offer advice, maybe a little bit of nudging, but they never got directly involved in their children’s lives like Cory did in this episode. Maybe it’s a direct factor of him taking on both the father and the mentor role, but I would really like a return to form, where Cory offers advice and guidance, but doesn’t pull his daughter’s new love interest physically away from her. We also see Topanga and Auggie, Riley’s brother, but only for maybe a line or two, and they were criminally underused.
Finally, we have to talk about the cameo of Mr. Feeny. It’s nice that they signify the real passing of the torch, from Boy to Girl, from mentor to mentor, but I’ve got a lot of questions. Is Mr. Feeny dead? Is he famous? How’d he get on all those posters in the subway? These are only half-joking, but if they’re going to be serious about carrying over all of the canon from Boy Meets World, they’re going to have to be meticulous with it. This show is going to pull in half its audience in adults who really want to be brought back to the years that they watched Boy Meets World, and if they start messing with the original show, they’re going to alienate all those people.
This show has a lot of promise, but it’s got the weight of one of the best sitcoms ever hanging over its head. I really want this show to succeed, and I’m going to keep tuning in to watch. If it lives up to its promise, I’m going to be so happy, but it’s got a lot of fighting to do before it comes into its own. Here’s hoping.
out of 10NBC, come on. I want to like you, I really do. You air smart comedies and shows that I really want to see succeed, like Community and The Cape (and yes, I’m serious about The Cape). But then you do things like Taxi Brooklyn.
Taxi Brooklyn, for those not in the know, is a new “action comedy” police procedural airing on NBC. It’s based on the French movie Taxi, which had three sequels and an ill-advised American remake starring Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah, and it shares the same basic plot, a police officer who is a bad driver is forced to be ferried around by a taxi driver who has skills that the police officer doesn’t expect. Wacky hijinks result.
Or, they should, which is why I put quotes around “action comedy”. The police procedural part is most definitely there, but aside from a car chase in the very beginning of the episode, there is little-to-no action. Every time that we would get a chance to see the taxi driver, Leo Romba, played by Jacky Ido, cut a drive somewhere down by half the time, we cut straight to the arrival. I would think that, in a show with Taxi in the name, the audience might want to actually see some of the Taxi part. Instead, what the writers think we’d rather see is the taxi driver use his tablet (in a very subtle and not at all obtrusive act of product placement) to access taxi maps or call his son on Skype.
The comedy, meanwhile, is…okay, there’s a scene in which the MD, leaving a crime scene, tells Leo and police detective Cat Sullivan, played by Chyler Leigh, that people around town are just dying to meet her, and is met by blank stares from both lead actors. “It was a joke, guys,” she says, and then walks away, leaving the stars to figure out that it was, indeed, a joke, and I could not even attempt to sum up the efforts of Taxi Brooklyn to be comedic better then that. Instead, the show is full up on drama. Cat’s father was killed under mysterious circumstances and her ex-husband is also the FBI agent called in to consult on her cases. Leo’s son is a country away and he is hunted by criminals, looking to kill him to eliminate the evidence he has tying them to a bank robbery. Even the preview of the rest of the season is filled with shots of predictably dramatic moments, interspersed with police work.
That said, I was afraid this was going to be another case of NBC remaking something that did not need to be remade and butchering it (like Ironside. Remember Ironside? No? Good). But all the elements of a good show are there. The lead actors have chemistry with each other, demonstrated early on in the episode, when there’s time for banter and it’s not all about catching the crook and getting the job done. The source material is interesting, and they do a good job of adapting it to something that someone might want to watch (bonus points for sticking to their roots and hiring a French actor to play Leo). They’ve even got a varied supporting cast, showing the wide variety of those living in Brooklyn, and including people I’m hoping to see more of, like Leo’s friend/roommate and Cat’s mother, both of whom seem like they could inject the comedy I’m looking to see in a show like this. I’m going to keep my eye on Taxi Brooklyn. It has the potential to be a really good action comedy, not just another police procedural.
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For example, “I See You” would have to be cut down to a radio edit because of the 3 minute outro that detracts from the fun rather than adds to it. “Falling Star” is enjoyable but the production is a bit wonky at times with the effects on the main guitar lead. It’s a cool sound, but I don’t think it would go over very well with a lot of listeners. A moment that freaked me out was when “Jealous Sun” started and it sounded like a discount My Bloody Valentine’s “I Only Said”. The chorus on “Jealous Sun” is great, but the rest of it seems like a rehashed shoegaze sound, relaxing but it’s been done. There are also times on here where I wished I heard less of Faris’ vocals. “Change Your Mind” would be nice if they had the guy from Film School do the vocals, but it doesn’t fit Faris. Slow and sultry isn’t his style, especially once you’ve heard “Sheena is a Parasite”.
