Flogging Molly have returned with their fifth studio album, and the first released on their own record label, Thirty Tigers.  Is it a worthy addition to their growing discography of live and studio albums?  Yes.

Ever since I fell in love with Flogging Molly with their first studio album, Swagger, I have approached each album with trepidation.  ”Is this the album where they’ll finally fall apart and I’ll only have good memories to live off of?”  Each album has take two to three listens for me to finally make up my mind, but with Speed of Darkness, I was immediately in love.

The band finally starts to stretch its legs a bit creatively adding in new sounds (piano on ”The Cradle of Humankind”) and finally allowing fiddle player Bridget Regan to sing a duet with her husband, band founder Dave King, on ”A Prayer For Me in Silence.”

This isn’t to say that the entire album is a work of art.  For the first time ever, there may be a song I skip in future listenings entitled “The Heart of the Sea.”  This song sounds like it’s trying to go in too many directions at once, and it can never seem to settle on one.  Considering their body of work, and this is the first time I’ve ever gone, “er … no thanks,” that’s a pretty good batting average.  It may grow on me with time, but for now I suggest leaving it at the bottom of the sea.

One thing that has always been a recurring theme with this band has been the plight of the working man, and this album ratchets that up even a notch further.  It could be because King and Regan now live in Detroit, and in fact, the song “The Power’s Out” is all about the decay that now surrounds them.

There is something that can definitely be said about this album over their previous efforts, and that is that it is possibly their most accessible to the general public.  The sound has been softened slightly, but not to a degree that should anger long standing fans, only enough that I could potentially see new people giving them a try, and that is never a bad ting.

Enjoy their first single, “Don’t Shut ‘Em Down”, and make sure to pick up the album if you get a chance.

The trailers for Cowboys & Aliens has been getting movie fans all jazzed up, but lets just hope it’s a lot different than the comic book it’s based on.

I had heard of the Cowboys & Aliens comic, but passed on reading it when it was first released.  Now that I’ve seen the trailer for the film, I was far more intrigued.  I ordered up a copy of the hardcover re-release of the comic created by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and gave it a read through.

I’ll save you having to read the rest of the review:  It’s horrible and should be avoided at all costs.

While the concept is intriguing, it’s obvious that Mr. Rosenberg has no clue what to do with it once he had the name.  The characters are extremely flat and lack any sense of motivation to their actions.  The plot, what there is of it, is extremely predictable and feels more like a paint-by-numbers work than anything approximating originality.  This may be the fault of co-writers Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley than of Rosenberg himself, but whomever is responsible should feel shame at their name being attached to this piece of drek.

Luciano Lima’s art also leaves a lot to be desired.  His anatomy is very loose, and his designs for aliens, their technology and what they wear borders on the sophomoric.  His work looks like what you submit to an art school in hopes of going to get some training to improve what talents you have, and not the polished work one would expect from a published work.  It’s extremely flat, lacking in details and has no real sense of motion.

There have been some rumors that the book was put together more as a pitch to movie studios than as any sort of serious work, and, if true,  it shows.  There is no passion here for the project, it is a culmination of people coming in, punching a clock and leaving when their shift is over.  This is not “art”, it’s filler.

The good news is that the footage shown in the trailer for the films bears little to no resemblance of the story in the comic.  The main character in the comic doesn’t have amnesia, nor does he wake up with alien tech on his wrist that he doesn’t know where it came from.  The Harrison Ford character isn’t in the comic at all.  And while there is a female that shares what looks to share one scene with the portrayal by Olivia Wilde, there are no other similarities thus far.  In short, the film looks to share only the concept in common with the comic, and, for once, that is an extremely good thing.

While I normally berate Hollywood for deviating from source material, this is one time I can honestly tell you that they are doing us a favor.  The original comic borders on being unreadable, it is just that bad.  While I am known for a harsh critic, my father actually picked up my copy one day without my knowledge and read it.  He is known for not having the most discriminating of tastes, and when he told me he had read it, I dreaded hearing what he would have to say about it.  His review was just six words, “What the hell was that mess?”

I’d say go for the movies, folks, but just the one time I would suggest you stay as far away from the original as you can.

Apparently people didn’t get enough of The Wolfpack in the first Hangover film as they dropped an estimated $86.5 million over the weekend for The Hangover Part II.

The second outing in this R-rated comedy series took in $31.6 million on Thursday in addition to the weekend take, bring its four day total to $118.1 million, well ahead of the original’s four day gross of $52.6 million.  The original also took ten days to reach $100 million, so obviously it picked up a lot more fans from home video after its theatrical run.

Despite the fact that the film has received horrible reviews, the film has come in as the second biggest opening ever for an R-rated film, the biggest opening ever for a comedy with that rating.

It wasn’t a great weekend for all sequels as Kung Fu Panda 2 came in at $48 million, down from the $60.3 million opening of the original three years ago.  Translation: People were not that excited about a second helping of Jack Black as a panda with kung fu skills.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides dipped 56 percent from last weekend to bring in $39.3 million, bringing its ten day total to $152.9 million.  While in line with the percentages the previous films saw in their second weekends, considering the film started off with a lower number, it’s not a good sign that it dropped that much.

Overall it was the best Memorial Day weekend since 2007, brining in $270 million.  Factor in the higher ticket prices for 3D films, however, and attendance was down.  No matter how Hollywood sugar coats it, not as many people are heading to the theaters, and as opposed to trying to placate people with a special effect, they could always try writing better movies.

I know, I must be nuts.

A total of 31 this week.

FunJug.com

• Bruckheimer Pitch Meeting
• Schwarzenegger Picks Up Girls
• Death by Mentos
• Girls Watch Porn, Too
• Angry Batbirds: The Animated Series
• Playing With an Otter
• Saturday Shorts: Lunchroom Manners

SeanPAune.com

• Third Green Lantern Trailer is the Best Yet
• 3-Way (The Golden Rule) – Saturday Night Live
• Fourth Pirates Film Disappoints at the Box Office
• Joplin Missouri Tornado
• Oprah Finale Closes the Book on 25 Years
• Final Network Rankings For 2010-11 Season
• Scattercast Episode #146: Where Have All the Kids Gone?

TechnoBuffalo.com

• Verizon Expanding 4G LTE Coverage on June 16th
• T-Mobile Announces New Unlimited Data Plans
• Amazon Promotes Cloud Player with $.99 Lady Gaga Album
• T-Mobile Rolling Out Faster 4G Speeds in 50 Markets
• Sony Music Japan Gets Hacked, No Apparent Data Leaked
• iPhone 5 Back Cover Image Possibly Leaked
• How to Configure Facebook Privacy Settings
• Sprint and Motorola Planning Event for June 9th
• Samsung Trender Will Have Unlimited Talk & Text for $50
• Skype Users Having Difficulty Signing In; Help Guide Released
• Google Wallet – Will NFC Matter to Consumers?
• Amazon Launches Mac App Store
• Jon Talking EXIF Photo Data on The Early Show
• Leaked HTC EVO 3D GSM ROM Lists Global Carriers
• Apple’s iCloud Music Service Will Mirror Your iTunes Library?
• iPhone 5: How iOS 5 Should Handle Widgets (video)
• Exclusive: BlackBerry Torch 2 Video Tour

NBC is pinning a lot of hope on its new drama series The Playboy Club, and despite not premiering until Sept., that’s no reason to get more footage out now.

Set in the 1960′s at the Chicago Playboy Club, the series follows the lives of some of the Bunnies and the customers that come to the club. You can read the full description in the NBC upfront synopsis, but as I said then, this is not a series that should be airing on traditional commercial television.  Perhaps on a cable channel like A&E or HBO this show would make sense, but on NBC?  All I can see is this series going badly.

Check out this footage and you be the judge.

Are you seeing what I mean? While I fully believe stories can be done without sex, this is a show that would seem to scream, “I need nudity, and it is essential to my narrative!” No, what we’ll get is a ton of teasing, innuendo and it will all finally grow into a nuisance.

I predict nothing but doom for this series.  Maybe in the 1980′s or 1990′s it could have worked, but 2011 when you have shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad and so on, something you know can’t even attempt to push the boundaries because of where it airs?  Good luck with that.

It’s episode #146 and perhaps 3D is finally dying … yay!

Perhaps 3D movies are finally losing some of their attraction to the audiences?

What’s happening to TV audiences?

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The final ratings tallies are in for the 2010-11 television season are in, and things are not looking good for the broadcast networks.

It would seem that young folks are fleeing the television networks in bigger numbers each year, and things are getting a bit worrisome for good old commercial television.  The only channel showing any growth is the Spanish language Univision, everyone else is plummeting like a rock.

While everyone is down, NBC has been sitting in fourth place for years, and its problems seem to be escalating instead of slowing, let alone turning around.  They shouldn’t be singled out as everyone did poorly, but losing 15 percent more of your viewers when your numbers are already in the basement is not a good thing.

Disturbing across the board is the continuing rise of the median age of viewers.  It is obvious that the younger viewers are flocking away from traditional television in droves.  Spending time on the Internet, watching streaming video and a slew of other distractions, they just aren’t interested in watching TV, and even if they are, they watch it on their terms and not at some time appointed by a network programmer.

Here are the numbers.

Adults 18-49

• FOX:  3.5/10 (-5%)
• CBS:  2.9/8 (-9%)
• ABC:  2.5/7 (-7%)
• NBC:  2.3/6 (-15%)
• UNI: 1.5 (+8%)

Adults 18-34

• CW: 1.0/3 (-9%)

Total Viewers

• CBS: 11.6 million (-3%)
• FOX:  9.8 million (-3%)
• ABC:  8.5 million (-2%)
• NBC:  7.0 million (-16%)
• UNI: 3.7 million
• CW: 2.0 million (even)

Median Age

• CBS: 55
• ABC: 51
• NBC: 49
• FOX: 45
• CW: 34

It’ll be interesting to see next year’s numbers, but after the lineups of new shows I’ve seen, I’m not holding my breath for things to get better.

[via Deadline]

Oprah Winfrey has closed the door on her show after 25 years on the air.

… Thank heavens that’s over.

I’ve been pretty clear over the years I’ve had this blog that I just plum don’t like Oprah.  Now, my dislike for her doesn’t quite reach my level of hatred for Rachael Ray, but she’d have to kill someone to catch up with “The Evil One.”

I’ve never cared for Oprah, but when she first popped back in the mid-80′s, she seemed mostly harmless.  Then came the “Oprah’s Favorite Things”, “Oprah’s Book Club”, O Magazine and on and on.  She was no longer just some harmless little talk show, she had turned into the leader of something that closely resembled a cult.  Whatever she told her group to do, they did it, and gladly.  She could make and break authors (and some of them nearly broke her …), she could bring corporations to their knees by promoting their products and then sometimes she carelessly threw around her power like she did with the school in Africa.

I will never understand how this woman came to mean so much to so many people.  She was a talk show host.  Period.  She did not cure a disease.  She didn’t bring a baby out of a burning building.  She didn’t even help an old woman across the street.  She talked to a whole lot of people and yelled their names.  This somehow turned her into a media mogul that unleashed people like Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and … yes … Rachael Ray (like I didn’t already dislike Oprah enough).

The only solace I take in all of this, her new OWN Network is not doing well an the numbers are dropping rapidly on the fledgling cable network.  Apparently her magic somehow didn’t carry over to a channel dedicated to her.  Fine by me.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any ill will towards Oprah, I just think she was … well … useless.  She was no different than any of the other hundreds of talk show hosts that have existed over the years except that she was spectacular at self-promotion.

After 25 years, Oprah is off my daily airwaves, and I couldn’t be happier.  Adios, Oprah, your only redeeming quality was your love of Cocker Spaniels.

The Joplin Missouri tornado has brought untold destruction to the city, and has made it the deadliest event of its kind in the United States since 1899.

First, a quick personal note. Several people have reached out to me via Twitter, instant message and email to make sure I was not near the destruction. Joplin is in the Southwestern corner of the state, and I’m in the Northeast corner. Kirksville and Joplin are over 330 miles apart, so it was near near us luckily.

That being said, from what we hear via word of mouth is that Joplin is essentially gone. while the news keeps showing the hospital and surrounding area, the destruction was far wider with some estimates saying the funnel reached a mile in width at its base, and 18,000 feet tall. Debris was thrown as high as 20,000 feet and landed as far away as 16 miles.

Currently the death toll stands at 116, and judging by this video, it’s easy to see why.

One of the things I immediately question in this video is you hear the guy yelling for the sirens to be started up, and while it’s easy to see why the police may have ignored him, I notice that you never hear the sirens once in the video. For those who don’t live anywhere near tornadoes, cities are equipped with siren systems to alert us to when a tornado is in the general vicinity.  Even when they do sound, you tend to ignore them at first because you hear them so often, such as I did during the Kirksville Tornado back in May 2009.  So, even if they did sound in Joplin, there is a good chance people ignored them.

There is also a sort of “golden rule” of tornadoes: They don’t generally come into town.  Due to a tornado being generated by cold and warm air mixing, the residual heat given off from a city causes tornadoes tend to skirt the edges of a town or city due to the heat of the pavement would make it begin to come apart.  The problem with this one in particular was that it was just simply too big.  Once it started going, there was no stopping it until it just became too unstable of its own accord.  More than likely, the people in town didn’t feel that endangered no matter how much warning there was.

For information on the city and what is happening, you can check out their information page, and additional updates being posted on its Facebook page.  If you want to donate to the Red Cross, you can find information on their site.

This story will be with us for some time, and just what can be done to rebuild the city remains to be seen.  My best wishes to all of those touched by this tragedy.

It’s a sad day when Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides making $90 million in its opening weekend is somewhat of a disappointment.

The fourth installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series has gone to show that there is definitely a law of diminishing returns when it comes to some sequels.  Opening on a whopping 4,155 screens, the film brought in $90.1 million this weekend, a $21,685 per-screen average, which is nothing to crow about.  Adjusting for inflation, the attendance was way off for this entry in the series, but the true test will be how it holds up in the coming weeks.

Oddly enough, according to Box Office Mojo, the film did really well in the foreign markets, bringing in $256.3 million, and setting records in multiple countries for an opening weekend.  Despite the lower than expected domestic opening, the franchise still has some life in it, and a fifth film in the series seems almost guaranteed when you count in home video sales and television rights.

In the interesting realm this weekend, Bridesmaids held on to second place, bringing in $21 million this weekend, only dropping 19.8% from its opening weekend.  A normal drop in the second weekend is more in the range of 50%, so it looks like this all female comedy may have the makings of a sleeper comedy hit, especially when you factor in its $32.5 million budget.

Thor fell to third place, bringing in $15.5 million, bringing its total to $146 million domestically.

In fourth place was Fast Five with another $10.6 million, bringing its total to $186.2 million, and it became the most successful of the series as of this past week.  The Fast and the Furious series has shown that some series can go on to be even bigger as it goes on,which makes the Pirates of the Caribbean performance this weekend that much more stark in contrast.

Some days the mysteries of the film industry are just astounding.

Justin Timberlake returned for his fourth time hosting Saturday Night Live, and, yes, the “Dick In A Box” guys came back for this third video.

Last time Timberlake was on SNL, we got “Mother Lover“, a sequel to the original “Dick in a Box” sketch.  Andy Samberg and Timberlake were spotted earlier this week filming a scene with Susan Sarandon and Patricia Clarkson, pretty much guaranteeing us a third video of these characters who are apparently stuck in the 1990′s.

Joining in on the fun this time was the episode’s musical guest, Lady Gaga.  While I didn’t find it quite as funny as the previous two installments, after multiple viewings it has definitely grown on me.  I present you with, 3-Way (The Golden Rule).

(please note: this video is sure to be going up and down for a while, I will continue to replace it as often as I can for viewers outside of the United States)

A total of 28 this week.

FunJug.com

• Japanese Banana Commercials
• One Shot ft. Eliza Dushku
• ANGRY BIRDS theme!!! covered by Pomplamoose
• Nyan Cat
• Greatest Marriage Proposal EVER!!!
• Top 50 Worst Video Game Voices (Dean’s Face Acting)
• Saturday Shorts: Mind Your Manners

SeanPAune.com

• “Boston” Rob Mariano Wins Survivor: Redemption Island
• NBC 2011/2012 Schedule Announced
• FOX 2011/2012 Schedule Announced
• ABC 2011/2012 Schedule Announced
• CBS 2011/2012 Schedule Announced
• The CW 2011/2012 Schedule Announced
• Scattercast Episode #145: Who Approves This Stuff?!?
• Bane From The Dark Knight Rises Revealed

TechnoBuffalo.com

• Could Microsoft be Preparing to Buy Nokia?
• Apple Offering Free Repairs in Japan Earthquake-Tsunami Zone
• Ask The Buffalo! Getting To Know Jon R
• Jon on CNBC Talking Apple Retail Stores
• MacBook Air Line to be Updated in June or July?
• iPhone 5: How Text Should be Handled (video)
• Sprint HTC Arrive To Get Security Update On May 24th?
• Logitech Announces Keyboards, Mice and Speakers for Tablets
• Barnes & Noble Receives $1 Billion Buyout Offer
• Verizon HTC Trophy Spotted in the Wild (video)
• Verizon Droid 3 Details Leak
• Netflix Appears to be Prepping for European Launch
• Flashback Friday: Introducing the Apple Store