Pirate Radio gives a glimpse at the struggles, adventures and misadventures of a small group of rebels to bring pop and rock music to the masses of the UK during the 1960s, leaving a trail of sex, drugs, and of course, Rock & Roll in their wake. At its heart Pirate Radio shows the passion for music and the determination of 8 DJs (Phillip Seymour Hoffman as head DJ "The Count") and their crew to "spread the love" in the middle of the North Sea on a beat-up old ship.

The crew faces political (and other) obstacles on their way to musical freedom however. One politician in particular (Kenneth Branagh) makes it his mission to shutdown the "filth", as he sees it, from being broadcast and enlists the help of a lackey to help him build a case against the operation.

For the most part this movie is about the group as a whole, but will occasionally delve deeper into the lives of individual members, such as in the case of the newest member of the crew: Young Carl (Tom Sturridge). Carl's story is a coming of age tale. Never having known his father Carl's mother (Emma Thompson) sent him onto the ship to be with his godfather and captain of the ship, Quentin (Bill Nighy), to sort him out from his rebellious ways at home, not that this ship is anyplace to get away from rebellious ways.

Friendships are formed, strengthened and strained throughout the journey but everyone shares the same passion in rock music and it's quite obvious that the group will do all in their power to make sure that it's heard. This movie was surprisingly funny, which I didn't expect from the trailer, but I was certainly not disappointed. This is a great movie with a great soundtrack that I recommend everyone check out.

I'll start by saying that I was a fan of the original 1977 The Hills Have Eyes film written and directed by Wes Craven, so my opinion of the remake is no doubt colored by that fact (come on, who doesn't love Micahel Berryman as Pluto?).

I was not so keen on seeing this movie when I first heard about it, as I'm not big on remakes (especially remakes of what I consider to be good movies), but eventually I decided to give it a go. Besides, in the worst case scenario a bad horror movie will always win out over pretty much anything Hollywood has to offer these days. In any case I went into The Hills Have Eyes with rather low expectations.

Casting - Unremarkable for the most part, though I always enjoy Ted Levine in pretty much any role. But really, who watches a horror movie for the casting?

Plot - If you've seen the original there aren't many surprises. "Family trip gone wrong in the middle of a town of freaks" pretty much covers it.

Effects - This is one area that I enjoyed. While not the best effects of the genre I think in many cases it was an improvement over the original which to be honest is expected. The gore level was about right.

Overall the movie met my low expectations and came nowhere near matching the awesomeness of the original. If you haven't seen the original and are wanting to watch this one, definitely side with the original and perhaps watch the remake for a comparison.

• Pirate Radio (2009) Review
• The Hills Have Eyes (2006) Review

With a 5 year lapse between album releases, I have to say, I was completely and utterly excited when I heard that Rob Zombie was doing a follow up CD to Hellbilly Deluxe. I respect Rob Zombie for following his other interests and delving into directing, that diversion yielded one of my favorite horror/exploitation films of all time (The Devil's Rejects), but still, I was thrilled to hear he was coming back to what we all know and love him for: music.

I have to admit that I had high expectations of Zombie's musical return. Perhaps too high. It's hard, after all, to compete with such classics as Dragula and Living Dead Girl but I bought the newest album anticipating to have my socks blown off. They sadly only fluttered in the breeze at most. Now, this isn't to say that the new record is bad, it just didn't live up to the hype I had built up in my head. With a title like Hellbilly Deluxe 2 I was expecting a fluid continuation from Hellbilly Deluxe, but the style just seemed wildly different from the original.

I'm one that will in general immediately like or dislike an album on the first time listening through, and the feeling I got on the first go-round of this was luke warm at best. There were a couple of songs that I really really enjoyed, Sick Bubblegum (even though this one has a slightly mainstream feel to it it was still a good listen), and Mars Needs Women (which is a gritty battle cry of sorts that I love) among them. Mars Needs Women is perhaps the only song on the CD that I could picture on the original Hellbilly Deluxe.

My lackluster reception of the songs themselves aside, I love Rob Zombie's new lineup which includes: John 5 on guitar(ex-Marilyn Manson guitarist, he played with Zombie on Educated Horses, and is a great solo talent, pick up one of his CDs if you haven't, you're missing out), Piggy D on bass, and Tommy Clufetos on drums. They sound really solid together and I hope they stick together for a while.

All in all it was a mediocre comeback to music for Zombie, but I guess with a 5 year hiatus it's not completely unexpected. I look forward to seeing them on tour this summer on the Mayhem Festival co-headlining with Korn and Lamb of God and also to any new CDs they put out, which may be a while as Rob Zombie seems to be focusing his efforts back on directing, at least temporarily.

Around 5 months ago I began the process of shaving my head. This was a drastic change from my previous hairstyle which came down to the middle of my back. I knew nothing about shaving my head, I'd had long hair for something close to 8 or 9 years and had barely even had a haircut in that time, so I enlisted the help of a couple of female friends who happily (perhaps overly so) began the process of buzzing down and shaving my dome.

Late January and most of February for me was spent in the hospital. It was at this time that I realized that my phone was not quite up to par for being away from a computer for extended periods and it was then that I decided when I got out I would get a smartphone.

Unlike a lot of people these days my fetish isn't the latest and greatest phone. I've gotten by for a long time with a simple flip phone that just makes calls and texts with little else notable about it. I only know about the iPhone and the Google G1 because they got a fair bit of press. Enough press to know that I didn't want either; not because they're bad phones, but because of the cost of the base phone plus the required data plan.

When it came time to look for my "perfect" phone I asked a couple of people that were far more knowledgeable in the mobile arena than myself and finally figured out that I wanted an HTC Excalibur (more commonly known as the T-Mobile Dash). I didn't really have a lot of requirements in my search. I knew I wanted it to be in the $100 range and WiFi would totally be a bonus so as not to have to get a data plan if not absolutely necessary. Hotspots are everywhere now it seems and being able to tap an existing network for a quick email check or something seems a far better alternative to a ~$20/month data plan.