Rivers Cuomo – Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo

So another collection of Weezer front man Rivers Cuomo’s demos huh? First of all there are probably a few questions some people might have. One being “Didn’t he just release a collection of demos a year ago?” Well for those who may not know much about Rivers, you may surprised by the amount of unreleased material he’s recorded in his career. It’s estimated at about 800 songs at this point. Another question is probably “Is that actually him on the cover?” And yes is that is in fact Rivers Cuomo’s high school senior portrait. So with all that jazz out of the way, let’s talk about the tunes.

Normally demo collections don’t really thrill me too much. The idea of songs that perhaps weren’t up to the artists standards isn’t a very attractive product, but here I feel a little different. With almost a five year gap between Pinkerton and The Green Album I doubt a talented guy like Rivers was just recording complete crap. Plus he’s one of my favorite song-writers of the 90s and who knows, maybe there’s that chance of finding some treasure of song that has somehow been hiding away all these years. I got his last demo collection with a less than stellar reaction, but I just had to give it another go.

Fortunately this time around Rivers has put together a significantly more professional collection of songs. A lot of the tunes here are definitely better quality, though there is always that strange 50 second experiment here, but overall it’s enjoyable. As a matter of fact it’s a shame that some of these songs didn’t make the cut onto some of Weezer’s albums. I like “I Want to Take You Home Tonight” a lot more than a lot of other tracks on 2002’s Maladroit and if it were polished up it could of even of been a single. I’d say the same goes for “The Prettiest Girl in the Whole Wide World” almost making it on The Green Album.

There’s a couple covers here as well. An acoustic rendition of Jermaine Dupri’s “I Can’t Stop Partying” is pretty good, I’m not familiar with the original but I like River’s rendition. Cuomo also covers The Beach Boys classic “Don’t Worry Baby” which although not the tightest rendition is respectable vocally and how can you not like that song?

Frankly a lot of material here is a lot of fun but there are a few problems. One is that a lot of these recordings are kind of sloppy due to the fact that, well they’re demos. Another problem is the amount of tracks on the album. This could probably be a pretty solid album if it were more around the neighborhood of 13 or 14 tracks but it’s 19 and there’s definitely some uninspired songs here. I’ve never liked anything from the Make Believe period (Talk about dullsville man) but that’s not my main problem. That would probably be that Rivers always has to include his dopey teenage experiments. Thankfully this had a lot less than his last demo collection, but who likes all that weird stuff? I’d never pay for this kind of compilation but it’s a nice little bonus if you’ve become burned out on all of Weezer’s other albums.

Favorite Tracks: “Can’t Stop Partying”, “I Want to Take You Home Tonight”, “I’ll Think About You”

The Day the Earth Stood Still

To crack into this re-imagining of a classic sci-fi movie let us delve into the original. In the 1951 sci-fi classic a humanoid being named Klaatu, along with his protective robot companion Gort, travelled to Earth on a mission of goodwill. Klaatu warns the humans that other planets are concerned Earth is gonna blow itself up. So they give them an ultimatum “fix this sh*t or we gonna blow you up.” (actual dialogue.)

The whole thing was a commentary on the Cold War. Additionally, the original film was an insightful, character-driven drama about people learning to work together. Seeing that the Cold War ended so many years ago this new film had to become something entirely different. Thus, what better issue to address than our world’s ever prevalent environmental woes?

This time around Klaatu is a considerably different character. His charming personality and role of peacemaker have been thrown out the window in favor of soulless, prophet of doom. Klaatu visits Earth this time to tell us “Hey, you guys have been destroying your planet so were gonna kill you.” (again actual dialogue.) All Klaatu is here to do this time is save all the animals on Earth with magic orbs. Kind of like the story of Noah except with robots. Klaatu in turn is injured by humans, escapes the humans, and becomes a fugitive alongside a scientist played by Jennifer Connelly and her son played by Jaden Smith.

The characters try to reason with Klaatu saying things like, “We can change there’s still time!” Meanwhile, the military is freaked out that Klaatu’s robot Gort might be a threat. The military responds by attempting to destroy Gort, but are shot down. So they take him into captivity. Eventually, Keanu and company meet up with Jennifer Conelly’s scientist mentor (played by a surprisingly low-key John Cleese) to try and convince Klaatu to spare Earth. John Cleese basically says to Klaatu “Why now? We’re not on the brink of destruction yet. Your society didn’t change their ways until they were on the brink of destruction.” (Klaatu mentioned this earlier).

I found this whole sequence amusing as this professor has torn apart all the little logic that held Klaatu’s plans together in what? Like two minutes? The whole movie is built around the fact that our times up when in fact, were far from it. If Klaatu’s race is so advanced then why couldn’t they look at this problem constructively?

Later in the film, the captured Gort turns into a big swarm of metallic bugs and destroys all man-made technology… Like trucks and football stadiums. As the world crumbles, Klaatu contemplates the professor’s words and decides to save the Earth after all. Wow, all it took was one reasonably intelligent person to convince him? Remember he’s the sole representative for all of space. Klaatu then uses his “orb powers” to stop the swarm and then everything stands still for a moment. I guess they still had to cash in on that title. As the credits I roll I find myself wondering “Why was this movie made?” The story is completely unrealized, the character’s relationships aren’t fleshed out, and it pays little respect to the original.

Klaatu uses his “orb powers” to stop the swarm and then everything stands still for a moment. I guess they still had to cash in on that title. As the credits I roll I find myself wondering “Why was this movie made?” The story is completely unrealized, the character’s relationships aren’t fleshed out, and it pays little respect to the original.
Apart from the logical nightmare that is the plot, there are some positive points. The visual effects, music, and cinematography are top notch. This is an aesthetically pleasing film as well. The acting is competent, especially Jaden Smith. Jennifer Connelly is fine and so is Jon Hamm, though his character serves no purpose. We basically learn nothing about Jon Hamm and then he gets killed and nobody cares. Kathy Bates also pops in as the pissed off Secretary of Defense and she’s fine.

I didn’t think this flick was unbearable immediately after, but it seems to get worse the more I think about it. Not the worst movie I’ve seen this year but not good. In the end, I think this movie more than anything will keep audiences standing still. Get it? Cause they’re bored!