USA is involved in wars since 2002. Art, especially popular art, is always influenced by current events. So why the heck are there no military TV series on TV? And take that from a person who doesn’t like anything but sci-fi.

Someone could argue that the war is so far away that the average American who has no children serving, doesn’t “feel” that his/her country is in the midst of a war. However, even if the “we are at war feeling” is not that strong, it’s possibly stronger than a ghost or paranormal TV series. I mean, come on. What’s more likely to happen? Hear that someone saw a ghost, or that someone you know just flew over to Iraq or Afghanistan to serve? In US, it’s the latter.

So why are there no TV series about the US military in times of war? An action/drama TV series that could depict, for a change, a bunch of females, following their story from training all the way to ground zero in Iraq and Afghanistan. Real stuff, not made up little incoherent stories as in CBS’ “The Unit” action/drama.

Money ain’t the problem to recreate such an environment. Fear could be though. Are studios afraid how controversial matters are going to be taken wrongly by some people (e.g. the rape of a woman during service, or the over-zealotry of both sides)? If that’s so, it’s stupid to halt such a production for that reason, because the more controversy there is, the more advertising comes for free.

The conspiracy theorist in me could go as far as saying that the US military itself would not like such a TV series (or even extensive war coverage by the media) and so the studios keep mum (even the legendary “M*A*S*H” TV series aired years after the Korean war was over).

Personally, if I was a TV exec, that’s the kind of TV series I would pitch to the networks right now. And if the networks don’t like it because they are chickens, there is always cable TV, where the rules are much more relaxed. I strongly believe that the clever thing to do right now in terms of TV business is to have the guts to create a controversial war action/drama around females.

It’s gonna get you hated by some weirdos around USA’s bible belt, but also is gonna get you rich. It has nothing to do with “exploitation of the war and our children who serve there” (so spare me the preaching). It has to do with business, and art. Art, and topics of interest in general, should never be halted because some people “might feel hurt”. Get over it people! It’s interesting, it’s current, it’s art, and that should be enough to be a done deal.

Update: Mike emailed me about the “Over there” war drama that lasted 13 episodes in 2005 in the cable FX channel. Apparently, it never picked up an audience, but reading about the plot, this is not the kind of drama I envisioned. This had a too traditional format.

I am a bit bummed about the lower quality of Madonna’s new album “Hard Candy”. In my opinion, this is her worst major studio album ever. I don’t think that the problem is that she doesn’t know how to put a good album together anymore, but I do think that she doesn’t care as much. You see, that’s an album that she “owes” to Warner Bros. before she gets out of her contract with them and move to her new label family. I would not be surprised if I found out that she didn’t care much about this album. Testament to this is the fact that she did very little TV promotional work for this new album compared to the older ones. Except 1-2 interviews on TV, she appeared nowhere else.

So, I put together my own ratings for her major studio albums (rating all the songs one by one per album), and here’s what I came up with. Apparently I like her early album work and her 2000-era better than her middle “erotica” career and her latest one. Special thanks to JBQ who helped me put that chart together at Google Docs, as I am a complete buffoon when it comes to spreadsheets.

Deep down inside, I have a girlie side too (where the hell did it go? ah, there it is). This version of Madonna’s “Erotica” song really brings out my girlie, romantic, even sexual side of me. I always kinda disliked the original “dirty” version of Erotica, but this one, along with the choreography, touches me so deeply that makes me take advances towards my husband. Only to be crushed by him 3 seconds later: “I am tired tonight baby…”.

Oh well, there’s always the weekend!

This is so much like real life. We all fall in love for the good looking one, but we end up marry the one who gets it right down with us. Same story for the well known Youtube celebrity ObamaGirl. She supposedly has a crash for Obama, but she ends up doing a video with the purer Gravel.

I have this negative opinion for music artists who can’t write their own music, or at least actively contribute in the production of their own album. But once in a while, an album happens to be so good, that even if it’s put together by a label and it’s just “a product”, I can forgive all that.

That’s the story with Rihanna’s “Good girl gone bad” album. I don’t like hip-hop (we are mostly into alt.rock in our home), but damn, that’s a good dance and R&B album, plus she can sing. It’s much better than Fergie’s album, and also better than Nelly Furtado’s. Definitely a better album than Madonna’s “Hard Candy” which used the same producers too. It seems that Madonna got just the left overs from the producer’s creativity.

Best songs on the album: Umbrella, Push up on me, Don’t stop the music, Shut up and drive, Rehab, and Good Girl Gone Bad. Except 1-2 songs that are not super but still acceptable, the rest are very good too.

1. Umbrella 9/10
2. Push up on Me 9/10
3. Don’t Stop the Music 9.5/10
4. Breakin’ Dishes 7.5/10
5. Shut up and Drive 10/10
6. Hate That I Love You 7.5/10
7. Say It 6/10
8. Sell Me Candy 7/10
9. Lemme Get That 6/10
10. Rehab 9/10
11. Question Existing 6/10
12. Good Girl Gone Bad 8.5/10

Overall rating: 7.9/10

Best hip-hop/RnB album I ever listened to.

JBQ came from work and we were supposed to go shopping for the week, but he was so tired that he slept for 1.5 hours. So I took the time to sketch two more portraits, ‘The Vision’ of the Avengers, and Wolverine of the X-Men.

The android Vision was always a tragic and sad figure. I hope I captured that.

In this sketch, I hope I captured Wolverine’s angry, animal-like nature.

That’s it. I won’t be sketching again for another 10 years or so…

This is why I love “Lost”. It camouflages itself as an action drama, but all the geek elements are there, in the form of easter eggs and scientific-like mysteries that eventually will be big parts of the overall story. “Lost” is simply any geek’s dream of a TV series, and anyone who have stopped watching it is only because his/her not watching closely enough — or they are not geeky enough.

I’ve said many times that I love the Marvel heroes. The kick DC’s heroes asses real hard!

Zap2It now has many release dates from the upcoming Marvel movies: “Iron Man 2″, “Thor”, “Captain America”, “Avengers”, “Punisher”… I can’t wait for the “Mighty Avengers“, my all time favorite comics. I always had a crash on Hawkeye, and when he wasn’t looking, there was always the Vision.

The only thing that bothers me is they keep rebooting the movie series a bit too much. The new “Punisher” movie uses a different actor than in the 2004 movie, and “Hulk” too. I much prefer a more solid universe where the cast is what it is, so it’s more believable this way.

Hopefully, the “Fantastic Four” will get a third movie too to finish up their trilogy, but this doesn’t look very possible now… At least the “Wolverine” movie is coming out soon!

The first full album of “Rantings of Eva” is out! It includes older songs from their EP and some new ones too. “Sirens” and “Fracture” are their best of their new songs, but “Bright Side” remains my all time favorite of their repertoire and one of my favorite songs of all time. Overall, an amazing alt-rock album that more people should know about. Help the band by buying it DRM-free from iTunes for $10 or from Amazon for $9. This album is my first iTunes purchase, even if I had an account for a while now. Overall rating: 7.5/10

A few months ago I published an interview with Dusty Watts, guitarist of ‘Rantings of Eva’.

Madonna is going hip-hop and 80’s funk with her latest album. She obviously got a bit jealous of the success of younger names like Rihanna, Fergie and Nelly Furtado and so she employed in this album producers that have worked with these singers, like Timberlake, Timbaland, Kanye West, and Pharrell. One by one, the songs of “Hard Candy“:

1. Candy Shop
A very primitive beat in my opinion. Repetitive and primitive. It doesn’t seem to excel at any point. I would have not included that song if that was my album.
Rating: 6/10

2. 4 Minutes to Save the World
The first single of the album is a good deal. It sticks easily under your tongue, and it’s quite dancy too. It gets a bit old after a few listenings though. Still, the 5th best song in the album.
Rating: 7.5/10

3. Give It 2 Me
The fourth best song in the album. Very trance, and with a dose of funk too. If this song doesn’t get you out of your chair to dance, none of the other songs in the album will. I somewhat dislike the rap part of the song though near the middle.
Rating: 8/10

4. Heartbeat
Except the chorus, which is nice, the rest of the song is un-singable. It feels like a test, that was thrown together just because they had a good chorus and needed to do something with it.
Rating: 6/10

5. Miles Away
The second best song on the album. It has atmosphere, it makes you “feel it” what she sings about. The only song with a heart and soul in the whole album. Possibly because she sings about a personal matter of hers so she feels it too when she sings.
Rating: 8.5/10

6. She’s Not Me
Terrible. Starts kinda ok, gets you acquainted with a disco/funk sound, and towards the middle it becomes weird — to say the least. Like it’s a different song. It just changes out of the blue, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Second worst song in the album.
Rating: 4.5/10

7. Incredible
Another primitive sound and beat. It’s listenable, but again, towards the middle changes its beat and it’s like it’s a different song too. It’s just weird. Yuck.
Rating: 5/10

8. Beat Goes On
A good disco/funk sound. No ugly surprises here. It really reminds me of the early ’80s disco songs. It’s a good track, but nothing special I can say special about it. It’s a good filler.
Rating: 7/10

9. Dance 2Night
Like the previous song, it’s a good listenable funk song. Pretty well done too, which makes you feel that you are back in another decade. Older people will feel nostalgic with this beat.
Rating: 7/10

10. Spanish Lesson
Worst song in the whole album. It’s a mass instrument mess. I don’t feel it at all. In reality, songs #6 and #7 are worse, but this beat actually had a potential and it seems that got destroyed during the production. And I can’t really forgive that.
Rating: 4/10

11. Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You
Best song in the whole album. It has a melody, it’s not random beats put together than some of her other songs. It has a melody and a rhythm, and doesn’t surprise you negatively.
Rating: 9/10

12. Voices
A very good song, third best in the whole album. It also has a grand melody, and some interesting lyrics too. “Who is the master and who is the slave” to “are you walking the dog or the dog is walking you?”. Good stuff.
Rating: 8/10

Overall, the album has 5 good songs, 2 “ok” songs, and 5 songs that range from mediocre to terrible. Compared to her previous album, “Confessions on a dance floor” (rating: 7.50/10), this is not as a strong of a release. Heck, some of her unreleased songs that never saw the light of day are better than some of these songs. Still, not a bad album compared to most other albums out there.

Overall Rating: 6.7/10