"Role Models" Rocks!

Lori and I went to the movies yesterday for the first time since August and checked out "Role Models" which I had to see because every review I read mentioned KISS, plus the ads cracked me up every time. The movie did not disappoint. It was hilarious all the way through and features one of the best foul-mouthed kids since the original "Bad News Bears." And KISS isn't just mentioned or have a song playing in the background. They are actually part of the plot and a key feature in numerous scenes. The scene where they discuss "Love Gun" really struck home, as I had that very same discussion years ago. And the fact that the scene takes place around a KISS pinball machine like the one sitting in my house just added to my Kissteria. So if you want a good raunchy, stupid laugh fest, with lots of boobs, check it out. And if you're a KISS fan - you'll like it even more.

London

So far we've been having a blast in London. We ended up in the 2nd row at Monty Python's Spamalot and it was hilarious. I couldn't believe how much I was laughing considering I already knew 90% of the jokes. We wandered all around the theater district, china town and strolled through the National Portrait Gallery. It's been nice to just be able to roam the city without any plans.
Today we visited the Imperial War Museum which is a huge place with lots of tanks, rockets, missiles and planes on display from World War I and World War II. I didn't know squat about WWI and seeing WWII not just from the US perspective was very interesting. There were cool interactive walk through sections for the Trenches of WWI and surviving The Blitz of WWII. There was a special area just on D-Day which was much more wide ranging than the US centric battles at Utah and Omaha beaches. Plus a floor just for The Holocaust. After visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC in September, I figured I was all Holocausted out but the section still packed a wallop. We spent 5 hours at the Imperial War Museum and still didn't see everything.
Then we visited Europe's biggest Salvador Dali exhibition; over 500 pieces at the Dali Universe. As you can probably tell by my love of Angry Johnny, I don't know shit about art. I'd heard the Dali name of course and knew he did a lot of whacked out stuff - but that was it. I was shocked by how much I liked some of his art. Some pieces made me laugh out loud and I spent hours taking my time looking at everything. Though I did pass on the additional Picasso gallery - by that point I was just spent.
Tomorrow we'll hit The British Museum and our final pubs before flying home Tuesday.

Hatteras Hotel

I worked today on an independent feature shooting in Rockport Mass, "Hatteras Hotel". I was one of just six extras, all the other guys were cops and I was the criminal. I guess that is a step up from being just a thug. It was a good day and a fun cast and crew (saw a couple guys I met working on Illegal Aliens again). The lead is Wade Williams, he said I looked like a real con; since he was a regular on Fox's "Prison Break" I took that as a compliment. I was handcuffed and marched through the station on a perp walk. At one point the camera was moved and I was sent through a door we hadn't been through before. The "cop" behind him shoves me along with my hands cuffed behind my back. We get to the door and he pauses to turn the knob then kicks the door open and shoves me in. What I didn't see was the step down into this area and I almost went down face first to the ground. Would've been the best performance for us - but the door slammed shut behind us ruining the take. Hours later my wrists are still red and sore from being shoved around in the cuffs. I should've gotten hazard pay.


Here is a recent story from Gloucester Daily Times

Rockport to star in 3rd movie of year

By Jonathan L'Ecuyer
Staff Writer
November 03, 2008 10:46 pm

ROCKPORT — The silver screen spotlight will shine on Rockport for the third time this year. Filming is expected to start next week on "Hatteras Hotel."

The movie company plans to film at numerous locations around Rockport between Nov. 10 and Dec. 18; sites include the old and current police stations, T-Wharf, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockport and Pigeon Cove.

While few details have been provided on who will star in the movie, Emerson Inn by the Sea general manager Molly Andrew Williamson did confirm the inn would play a major role in the mystery drama — the part of the Hatteras Hotel.

According to Town Administrator Michael Racicot, the film is about a Boston police officer who grows tired of city living and decides to finish out his career in the fictional community of Salem Harbor, portrayed in the film by Rockport. The man becomes sheriff of Salem Harbor and is faced almost immediately with the mysterious death of an upper-class teenager who is found dead after a night of partying at the Hatteras Hotel.

The England-based production team has offered to donate $10,000 for affordable housing in Rockport. The money will go to the Rockport Housing Authority, Racicot said.

Racicot said Wade Williams, who has portrayed Brad Bellick on Fox's hit series, "Prison Break," for the past three years, is set to star in the film.

Film location scout Tiffany Kinder and about a dozen members of the crew met with police Chief Tom McCarthy at the Rockport Police Station yesterday morning. The crew plans to transform Rockport's station into the Boston Police Department on Monday, Nov. 10, and shoot several scenes inside the station's community and locker rooms, booking area, and cell block on Nov. 11, McCarthy said.

Rockport's old police station, located on Broadway, will portray the Salem Harbor Police Station, McCarthy added.

Attempts to reach Kinder yesterday were unsuccessful.

At the Emerson Inn by the Sea, 1 Cathedral Ave., Andrew Williamson said owner Bruce Coates and the entire staff is "thrilled" that the inn was selected as the movie's title setting.

"This will be the most filming the inn has ever seen," Andrew Williamson said, yesterday. "They're just fabulous and excited about coming to Rockport. The gentleman who wrote the script lit up when he came to the inn. When he saw it, he knew (the inn) was exactly what he had pictured in his mind. His excitement made me realize what kind of a gem we had here."

Williamson said portions of the script have been rewritten just to allow for the inn to remain as the prominent location. The crew will transform the inn into the Hatteras Hotel later this month and begin shooting early next month, Andrew Williamson added.

Meanwhile, C.P. Casting Inc. of Boston is busy hiring background extras for the movie.

According to the company's Web site, www.cpcasting.com, it is looking for extras to portray hotel guests and staff, tourists, fishermen and deckhands, and many other types.

The most important factors in being chosen to work as an extra on the film will be the person's ability to provide their own transportation to Rockport and their availability during the shoot. The movie will not be filming on weekends, nor on the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday during Thanksgiving week.

Most extras will only work one day, the site said, but being able to get to the set early in the morning and stay all day is critical. People interested in being an extra are also asked to consider letting the movie film their car for some scenes.

Those interested in applying can visit the company's site online and fill out a "size card" via a "Hatteras Hotel Extras" link.

The movie is expected to draw a PG rating, Racicot noted.

The film is the third to film in Rockport this year.

In April, Walt Disney Pictures came to town to shoot scenes for the romantic comedy, "The Proposal," starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. Then, in August, Mel Gibson was filmed on Cape Hedge Beach for his next film, "Edge of Darkness," due in theaters next year.

Racicot said the movies are a great thing for the town and the film company's donations are benefitting good causes.

Jonathan L'Ecuyer can be reached at jlecuyer@gloucestertimes.com.

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.

AC/DC Kicks Ass As Usual

AC/DC does nothing new on this tour (aside from some killer huge video screens, opening animation and wrecked train set), which is exactly why they keep selling out night after night and pulling in one of the oldest and nastiest looking crowds I've ever seen at a rock show. Considering Angus Young reminded me of Don Knotts' corpse being reanimated by Chuck Berry's soul - I guess it all fits just fine. Last night was the first time I ever noticed a rock drummer, Phil Rudd, smoking while playing. Amazing.
Brian Johnson was in remarkably fine voice and the band was incredibly loud. I was singing at the top of my lungs and couldn't even hear myself most of the night. And once the cannons start firing in "For Those About To Rock"... well, forget about it. My ears are still ringing, so I consider myself proudly saluted.
Last night also made it definite - gotta get the AC/DC pack for Rock Band.

Set:
Rock n Roll Train
Hell Ain't a Bad Place To be
Back In Black -- Watch on YouTube
Big Jack
Dirty deeds done dirt cheap
Thunderstruck
Black Ice
The Jack
Hells Bells
Shoot to thrill -- Watch it on YouTube
War Machine
Anything Goes
You Shook Me all night long
TNT
Whole lotta Rosie
Let There Be Rock

Encore:
Highway To Hell
For Those About To Rock

Review: Boston Globe
by Sarah Rodman

AC/DC keeps the voltage on high

While change is being cheered in some corners of the world right now, the members of AC/DC know that there is also some value in sticking to your guns. Or, in their case, cannons.

Last night at the TD Banknorth Garden, "Hells Bells" rang out, the walls were shaking, the big guns blazed in salute to those who had rocked, and for 1 hour and 40 minutes nobody worried about their 401(k). For a hard-rock concert, you could scarcely ask for a more satisfying escape. But AC/DC offered it, in the form of lead guitarist Angus Young's vivid, joyous solos and lead singer Brian Johnson's just-gargled-with-Rustoleum howl.

The pair led the band and the devil's horn-throwing - and wearing - sold-out crowd of 15,000 through a night of old songs, and new songs that sound like old songs.

There were a few frills - aside from those cannons, a locomotive chugged onstage to announce opener "Rock 'n' Roll Train" - and plenty of thrills delivered with heat and heart. There was no milking of "TNT" or adding new stretches of road to "Highway to Hell." This was lean, clean riffage and four-on-the-floor whomp at its most pure. As Johnson said during "Shoot to Thrill," "It's rock 'n' roll boogie; just let it creep right on through you."

Perhaps most impressive was the shockwave the group sent through songs so ubiquitous they've become almost inaudible over the years. Johnson's mischievous grin and laddish gusto and Young's white-hot precision managed to sear the residue off songs like "You Shook Me All Night Long" and "Thunderstruck" caked on by overuse and abuse by cover bands and classic rock radio, and at ball games and strip clubs. And the lascivious bump-and-grind of "The Jack" remains a guilty pleasure as Young continues his silly striptease tradition, though now he only gets down to his AC/DC-branded boxers from his schoolboy uniform.

He may still embrace his inner adolescent, but Young's guitar playing is that of a man his age (53) with plenty of experience in the woodshed. His fretwork was the picture of economy throughout the night, but he got his guitar hero on for a fiery solo during "Whole Lotta Rosie" - complete with a blow-up representation of the titular gal - and let loose with an epic ripper on "Let There Be Rock." He careered from speedy runs to piercing sustains while duckwalking and flailing about the stage with abandon.

At 35 years deep and with 70 million records sold, the boys in AC/DC know exactly what their fans like, and the recently released "Black Ice," their first album in eight years, reflects that. Not surprisingly, it sounds like most of the ones that came before it, so the tunes from it - including the swinging title track - fit in just fine last night.

Irish rockers, and clear AC/DC devotees, the Answer opened the show with a complementary sound and attitude.
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Review: Boston Herald
by Jed Gottlieb

AC/DC lights up Garden

Angus Young is 53. Let that sink in. The guy in the purple, crushed-velvet schoolboy outfit bouncing down the catwalk in front of 15,000 people tearing through dirty blues Clapton can’t play is 53 years old. Wow.

Last night at packed-to-the-rafters TD Banknorth Garden, AC/DC fired off classic rock hit after classic rock hit sounding, and acting, like the young lads they were 30 years ago. OK, so with a combined age of 281, the quintet’s lost a step. But with the amount of beer guzzled and weed toked, nobody cared.

The band began with “Rock ’n’ Roll Train” - the opener of its new Wal-Mart exclusive, “Black Ice.” New stuff usually doesn’t go over well with the classic rock crowd, but as the album’s gone platinum in just the last two-and-a-half weeks, a shocking number of fans had their beers in the air in a rock ’n’ roll salute.

But no AC/DC show begins until Angus heats up. During “Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be” he was hot. On “Back in Black,” smoke was rising from the fretboard of his iconic Signature SG. But it was on “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” that those devil horns began to poke through his schoolboy cap and he burst into flames.

From here on out it was all Angus. Singer Brian Johnson is to be commended -the bloke never could sing, so it’s amazing he’s still able to wheeze and wail through almost two hours of stadium pleasers. The rhythm section of brother Malcolm Young on guitar, Cliff Williams on bass and Phil Rudd on drums - half the night with a burning cigarette between his lips - hit a groove and kept it nailed down. But everyone came for Angus.

The pint-sized, bar-blues genius - who looked more like Gollum than a rock god - tore through “The Jack,” “Shoot to Thrill” and “T.N.T.” with the moxy of a reform school-bound ninth-grader. And during “Let There Be Rock” - Angus’ big showpiece - it wasn’t his duck walk or on-the-ground flailing or the platform at the end of the catwalk that carried him 30 feet in the air that made it so awesome. It was the riffs. The kick-in-the-groin, simple-and-savage, rock ’n’ roll riffs.

Attention Wal-Mart shoppers, your minds have just been blown!

Few claim AC/DC as the greatest rock band of all time, but if rock’s about two things - sex and rebellion - then these guys may be No. 1. Or at least that’s what everybody at the Garden thought when the band blasted through an encore of “Highway to Hell” and “For Those About to Rock.”

You know when sexy celebs have utterly average kids? Well, that’s what AC/DC opener the Answer was. AC/DC and Led Zeppelin had a kid. Its rock was as average as Rumer Willis.

For Those About To Rock

Today is going to be a totally sick rockin' day. First we are headed to the Patriots - Bills game. Despite having season tickets I've missed the last two home games so this is gonna feel like the home opener all over for me. Then tonight it's AC/DC at the Boston Garden. This will be my 8th AC/DC show over the years, but it's been eight years since their last tour I think.

The Globe had a fun article this week proclaiming AC/DC to be The Greatest Band EVER!
They've had too many dismal albums in my book to give them that title, but they sure are the most reliable and an amazing live band.

Of course The Greatest Band Ever for me is probably Metallica. And I'm psyched the Guitar Hero rumors are no longer just rumors. Guitar Hero: Metallica will be out in 2009! SWEET! I'm gonna be shoving so many 14 year olds out of my way the day that goes on sale...