RELAPSE-EMINEM'S NEW ALBUM

Another big album leaked to the internet via Rapidshare and the other share file servers, Eminem's Relapse isn't a great album lyrically, but production-wise, the greatest producer in music, Dr. Dre, has excelled himself.

Opening with "Dr. West", with Em in conversation with his doctor (he's obviously been having treatment for alcohol misuse) played by Dominic West (McNulty, from The Wire), with British accent, playing a laconic, devil-may-care doctor, who doesn't seem to care that Em is quite nervous about going back into society, hoping he doesn't go back to the demon drink. The end of the funny skit tells a different tale, sending the listener in 78 minutes of Eminem as he falls off the wagon.

We go through Eminem's insanity, issues with his mother, obsessions with celebrities (like Lindsey Lohan and Mariah Carey), references to felching (a pretty gross sexual act); it's all business as usual and, lyrically, it doesn't break new ground, even though it's quite witty in places. The trademark flow is evident throughout and the wordplay is inventive, if a little lazy and obvious.

What sets this apart from the usual hip-hop albums is Dr. Dre's production. His trademark synths and drum patterns, including some wonderful samples of sitars all make for a head-nodding, funky, cinematically kaleidoscopic landscape.

The unofficial sequel to the introspective "Stan", "Beautiful" is about the only time Em shows he can make a track with that seems troubling and heartfelt. The production, by Dr.Dre has a touch of the Aerosmith's about it, especially with guitar and sad refrain.

The carnivalesque "We Made You" is obviously a commercial sop for the album to get more exposure and more sales. Musically, it could have been a track made for Britney or Christina, even they're the targets, more or less, for Em's rant on this track.

The French singer Mike Brant's Mais Dans La Lumiere track gets the sample treatment in the excellent "Crack a Bottle". That is, until 50 Cent chips in with the most lackluster rhymes he's ever bother to record. At least Dre's credible performance (and elsewhere, vocally, on the album) elevates the album a bit more that it probably deserves. Even though it's probably a sure bet that Dre's rhymes were ghostwritten, as they have been in the past by Jay Z and MF Doom.

Overall, Relapse is solid, but more so for the production, which is always consistent and worth listening too. Perhaps they'll release an instrumental album. Relapse 2 is due out at Christmas. I suppose, for Em's fans, this makes up for his 5 year absence.

THE WIRE-BEST SHOW EVER MADE ON TELLY

Since I fell Ill recently with some bug or whatever, it has been miserable and boring trying to get through the illness without going stir crazy with cabin fever.

Recently I picked up from Ebay the entire 24 discs of critically-acclaimed U.S TV series The Wire. To be fair, I've known about it for a long time. My mum, brother and some friends have always mentioned it. I suppose I've dismissed it up until now because of my love for films and thinking, rightly, in a lot of cases, that TV is/was the poor cousin of cinema.

Well, The Wire has proved to be the exception. This multi-layered, multi-stranded epic 60 episode, 61 hour series had me hooked from the first episode. Each season concentrates on a different aspect of life in Baltimore, Maryland, including: the drug trade, the ports, local and state government, the school system and the newspaper industry, specifically the Baltimore Sun. But these aspects overlap, and the series' try to show you the six degrees of separation between, for instance, between the drug dealer on the 'corner', and the police chief, his subordinates and the politicians that need the dealers off the streets as they're linked to a series of brutal, drug-related murders.

But this only scratches the surface. Both the police and the drug dealers have their own hierarchy, but its expressed in different ways, with different sanctions for those that step out of line. Depending on your point of view, you decide on who has the more legitimate coda. Although, it's fair to say that stepping beyond your boundaries in the drug world is usually a lot more bloody and fatal than upsetting your boss in the police force.

To complicate matters, brilliantly, the characterisations of each character are shaded and multi-dimensional, so that there is no black and white easy way of defining anyone. Main characters include McNulty (Dominic West), a maverick cop with a rebellious streak, who hates authority, drinks heavily and can't commit to a relationship; Omar, (Michael K. Williams) a gay drug dealer with a contradictory nature: He's not materialistic and sticks to his own strict code, but has a fondness for extreme violence, usually with a shotgun; Stringer Bell (Idris Elba), a drug Kingpin, who is far more intelligent and cunning than anyone might give him credit for, he's the main henchman of drug lord Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris), both of whom run the drug game on Baltimore's West Side.  This is only the tip of the iceberg as far as characters go. There are many more, overlapping, contradicting and similar traits in many of the series' many players. 

Also, for a TV series this goes in-depth in sociopolitical issues, so that the viewer understands that the drug dealer on the corner isn't always there by choice, but by circumstance. The police have their own agenda, which doesn't always mean that they get the results they need; they're subject to the same problems as all human beings: namely maintaining a sense of self in a senseless world.

The Wire goes in depth into every facet of Baltimore life, not always with the most interesting results, but, in the main, the program is compelling viewing and even with the lulls, there's plenty to enjoy and to learn from.

The music, apart from the title sequence, is usually urban hip-hop, much of it the soundtrack surrounding the urban blight and crime of west Baltimore, a part of any city in the U.S, but which has its own feel. Baltimore hasn't been seen much on TV or in the cinema (save for John Waters, a native of Baltimore) and with the distinct housing architecture, it seemed it was only time before someone would exploit this untapped city, nestling as it does between Washington D.C and Delaware.

The language of those in the drug neighbourhoods seems authentic and the slang tells its own story- it's good to see that the makers didn't feel they had to dilute the expression and language to make it more palatable for consumption. Incidentally, the brilliance of The Wire is how things overlap, so the kids in the school, blighted by a poor education system, slang their way through school, acting up to a self-fulfilling prophecy, so that the teachers (including one disgraced police officer) find it difficult to get them to integrate back into "normal" society.

The grasping, ambitious politicians pull rank at every turn, but even they are "schooled" into the machinations of government, making sure they don't get their own way all the time. The dockers union come into criticism, as its elected leader finds himself in temptations way with a nephew and son who seem too easily embroiled into the world of drugs and smuggling prostitutes.

Anyway, The Wire can't really be written about successfully. You just have to drop a fair bit of cash, take the weekend off and enjoy a wonderful, fascinating, brilliantly written and acted epic slice of crime drama in the city of Baltimore-a city rarely ever seen on the screen.

STAR TREK-BOLDLY GOING AT LAST-HOLLYWOOD MAKES GOOD FILM SHOCKER

After a bout of gastric flu, food poisoning and all kinds of intestinal comings and goings, I was well enough, and looking forward to, Star Trek- the re-imagining, or whatever its purpose was. I remember seeing the first ever Star Trek movie back in 1979 with my dad at the Golders Green ABC (now demolished)- we walked out after half an hour; God, it was boring, but then I was only 7 at the time.

Still, I wasn't really interested in going to see the sequels that came out in the 80s. Wrath of Khan was good and so was the Search for Spock, mainly because they had more action, or in "Search's" case, it had a lot more humour, and didn't take themselves oh so seriously as they had in the past. I did like the TV series, but never took it seriously, never rushing home for the exploits of Shatner and Nimoy (I always thought T. J Hooker was more enjoyable, even if Shatner wasn't in shape enough to chase criminals or jump over the bonnet of criminals' cars).

Anyway, back to "Star Trek". Creator of "Lost" and a host of other things, J.J Abrams has updated the saga by injecting youthful energy into every scene. This is a prequel of the "Star Trek" saga that has gone before it. So, we're treated to the interesting idea of showing the crew of the USS Enterprise as space cadets, who, as the film unfolds, have their own set of problems, and don't seem, on first glance, able to take on the rigors of manning a space ship.

James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is a reckless risk-taker, stealing cars, drinking heavily and overly confident (if not very successful) womanizer. Spock (Zachary Quinto) is as logical as ever, even if he's not allowed to be emotional, despite having the conflicting characteristics of being both Vulcan and Human, as such, he's tormented by these two worlds, feeling left out of both. It isn't spoiling too much to tell you that Kirk and Spock- respected colleagues and friends in the original series-are at each other's throats in this new version, giving the film a lot of its energy and spark.

Whilst a prequel could have been boringly predictable, this "Star Trek" takes you in unexpected ways, with action sequences and a plot that shoots along with a cracking pace. If the battle with Romulan Nero (Eric Bana) is a bit old hat and one-dimensional, the screenwriters pepper the film with observations and a sub-plot-slightly complicated- regarding time travel, which includes a cameo from Leonard Nimoy. I won't spoil it, but it's an interesting conceit.

The look of "Star Trek" is bold and futuristic without being obvious. Anticipating the future, when much of the 1960s original series looks very dated and updating it for a very cynical, ungrateful age wasn't an easy ask, but the filmmakers have equipped themselves wonderfully. Not sure about the cameo from Simon Pegg as Scotty, the engineer. His 15 minutes of fame should have been up when "Hot Fuzz" opened; half an hour too long and just not very funny. Pegg's been trading off of "Shaun of the Dead" for far too long. At least he keeps his mugging to camera to a bearable minimum.

Overall, the film works. Finally Hollywood has made an intelligent, witty and engaging piece of cinema. Whilst it's easy to be cynical and point out that Hollywood has run out of original ideas, so has to rely on TV series, old films, etc, but this is actually worth the effort, able to stand alone in the vortex of space, boldly going, inevitably, to the sequel, star date... probably Summer 2010.

X-MEN: WOLVERINE (THE CINEMA VERSION).

Not much difference between the two versions. As I suspected, louder and a little more obnoxious. A lot more clarity on sequences filmed in darkness. Otherwise, popocorn fodder- digestible, but hardly memorable.

X-MEN: WOLVERINE (THE SNIDE EDITION)

So, from my contact in the 'underworld', I snagged and bagged a snide, bootleg copy of the latest "X-Men" movie. The quality was quite good, just a little under the type of clarity I'm used to when watching most bought dvds.

Anyway, the movie, for me, was a fair old dud. This version had a few special effects missing-these were strangely rendered by grey, matted animation, which obviously needed shading and editing. It didn't detract, much, from my overall feeling that this was lazy stuff- produced, edited and directed by committee, to satisfy the short attention span of the all-important 18-25 demographic.

Hugh Jackman oozes charisma throughout, but it's a bit unfair for the filmmakers to expect it all to fall on his shoulders, especially as the writing, at times, is pretty bloody weak. The opening sequence had a certain flair about it- but following the rule of keeping an audience glued by what you show them in the first few minutes-this quickly descends into trite territory, with lots of swirling camera angles, pre-censored, teen-friendly swordplay and knockabout violence. The tacted-on plot devices of sibling rivalry and corrupt government officals are just too hackneyed to be bearable.

The trailer gave away all the best bits, including the cheesy one-liners. But even the action is lazy: if there's no plot device or well-written verbal joust, just blow things up, which this film does- over and over again. I suppose as this the start of the Summer blockbuster season, you can't expect much more than popcorn fodder, but the best movies, be it Summer, Winter, rain or shine, give you something to think about as they blow everything to kingdom come.

We used to have comic book heroes in movies- John Matrix in "Commando", for instance. But now, because Hollywood, having had a dearth of original ideas for far too long, has had to take everything so literally, and plunder the actual comic book heroes of the actual comic books.

I wonder how many scripts with originality are being thrown to the wayside because, on the surface, they're just not marketable.

Hollywood- you need to think a bit harder, and, have more security on your product, so top-quality leaks of your new movies don't get into the hands of people who won't be encouraged to watch films in the cinema or rent them on dvd. Before anyone says anything, I will probably see "X-Men: Wolverine" in the cinema, but not until the crowds die down. Although I still don't hold out much hope that the reasons I didn't like it will improve on a big screen.

I noticed that lots of extras in the film get to flay their arms wildly and look earnest and exciting at the same time, even though most would probably be thinking: "how dumb I look trying to look cool"... and failing miserably. The uber-smug and piddingly talented Ryan Reynolds gets little screen time- thankfully so.

When all is said and done, it's an hour and a half of entertaining mayhem, but it could have been so much more. I'm sure it'll make 20th Century Fox a bundle of money, and that's the bottom-line. You might think that if this is all Gavin Hood and the gang have to offer, are they just toying with us? Is there a better film in the pipeline to be released in a parallel universe?

Let's hope the re-imagined "Star Trek" lives up to the hype, otherwise I'll boldly go back to watching classic foreign films.