This is probably my favorite album. Mobb Deep's "the Infamous...". It came out of basically nowhere in 1995, in the wake of Wu-Tang's debut... a surprise album from two hungry young rappers formerly most well-known (if you can call it that) for a song about girl's asses (Hit it from the back) and a catchy track about the life of a hoodrat trying to stay out of the game (Peer Pressure). Though I wasn't really clued into such things then, I don't think anyone expected a record like this as their sophomore effort.
Fuck where you at kid, it's where you from.
In no uncertain terms, this record is a masterpiece, and along with Wu-Tang's Enter the 36 Chambers and Nas' Illmatic, this record defined and era of New York hip-hop and rap... and this record is better than those. Those three records, along with Only Built 4 Cuban Links and Midnight Marauders probably changed my life, and DEFINITELY changed my whole outlook about music, especially rap music.
Sometimes I wonder, do I deserve to live? And am I gonna go to hell for all the things I did?"
The production is sparse, dark, menacing... brooding. The lyrics are beyond dark, with Prodigy spitting out couplets about lifeless street kids who don't care if they die, how his dark heart pumps foul blood through his arteries... this album paints a picture of street life that is counter (or at least a tangent) to most other mainstream gangster rap albums of that era (and much of Mobb Deep's own output since)... the life of the corner slinger as something dark, regrettable, fucked up. Still boastful. But real. Visceral. Tangible.
I live by the day only if I survive the last night.
I love this album, I listen to it probably on average 2, 3 times a week. I've been listening to it a lot lately (once today, front to back), and decided to talk about it here... you can read the wiki page here and check the rec room for more thoughts on the subject.
KnowwhatI'mSaying? Being that we live the motherfucking Trife Life?
Amazon review: B movie maverick Larry Cohen always enjoyed slipping a little social commentary into his genre pictures, and the satirical sci-fi/horror comedy The Stuff is no exception. A mix of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Blob, The Stuff is an insidiously addictive, low-calorie dessert sensation that soon wins the hearts and minds of the nation, but mostly the minds. You see, to borrow a title from another Cohen classic, it's alive.
Michael Moriarty is an industrial spy with questionable ethics and a certain moral flexibility behind his disarming drawl. "No one is as dumb as I appear to be," he informs his newest client, a snack food CEO who wants the secret of The Stuff. Needless to say he becomes the film's hero, a smart-talking everyman battling a compromised FDA and a corporate baddie who sees dollar signs in every Stuff snarfing zombie he converts. Cohen's satirical swipes at consumerism, advertising, and the ethics of corporate profit come fast and furious, if not exactly focused, and help drive the film past his--at times--sloppy direction. Moriarty's energetic performance is hilarious, and his rag-tag crew includes Andrea Marcovicci as an advertising wunderkind (who improbably falls in love with Moriarty), Saturday Night Live alum Garrett Morris as "Famous Amos" parody "Chocolate Chip Charlie," and Paul Sorvino as a commie-hating, conspiracy-spewing militia leader.
Josh review: THIS MOVIE IS AMAZING. And unlike some of the movies I have shown, since this is Larry Cohen (It's Alive!, Black Caesar, Hell Up In Harlem, God Told Me To), it's a thrill a minute...
Q, The Winged Serpent:
amazon review: OK, who's Q, anyway? "Q" is short for Quetzacoatl, an enormous winged serpent and Aztec deity who's called back to life after a series of ritual human sacrifices in Manhattan. It takes a lot to keep a critter like Q satisfied, so he flies around and lops the heads off sunbathers, window washers and swimmers as handily as popping grapes off the vine. The police are confounded by the murders, decapitated bodies (blood rains from the skies on NYC denizens) and Q-sightings. The solution comes in the unlikely form of Jimmy (Michael Moriarty), a petty thief. After a heist goes bad, he hides from his cronies in the uppermost spires of the Chrysler Building and stumbles on the giant bird's nest and egg. He leads the NYPD up to the lair for a big showdown with Q, but it's not quite as easy as anybody thought, of course. Director/screenwriter Larry Cohen was one of the more inventive, original voices of Seventies B-movies, with credits that include God Told Me To, Black Caesar, It's Alive!, Hell Up in Harlem and The Stuff. With Q, Cohen put together an interesting, entertaining mix of Fifties sci-fi homage (complete with great stop-motion special effects for the terrifying beast), action movie, and crime drama. It also touches on the metaphysical question of how exactly one goes about killing off a god. It'd be difficult to think of a more compelling performance from Moriarty; as the piano-playing, scat-singing small-time crook Jimmy, he's repellent and sleazy. However, he's struck on something that will give him 15 minutes to bask in the spotlight ("I'm the most important man in New York!", he gloats) and give him a chance to redeem himself and save thousands of lives. Moriarty brings a depth to the character that makes him absorbing, if not quite sympathetic, and gets to come across with the choice line, "Stick it up your…brain! Your small little brain!". With plenty of humor, suspense, a gallon or two of gore, and great performances from Moriarty and David Carradine and Richard Roundtree as his cop nemeses, this is great, original, entertaining sci-fi fare. --Jerry Renshaw
Josh review: Another great, entertaining Larry Cohen movie!
Trivia:
Writer/director Larry Cohen, according to interviews, once looked at the Chrysler Building and said, "That'd be the coolest place to have a nest." This single thought was the idea which began the creation of this movie.
