Author Archives: Mister Bulger

                  I’d like to think that he’s involved with Snoopy’s dogfights with the Red Baron somehow. But which side is Eddie on? He is evil, after all.

Let’s say you were a former member of one of the most popular bands of all time. You have one third of the songwriting credits for four songs on their first album, which is also probably their least selling album. Still, the album probably sells a lot of copies every year. How much money doContinue reading “Metal Week Continues with Megadeth”

Heavy metal should have called it a day after Master of Puppets. Not because it’s the best metal album, but because it’s a thorough mix of the metal music that came before it and because every subsequent innovation in heavy metal kind of sucked. Heavy metal in general is resistant to innovation. You can onlyContinue reading “Metal Week Continues with the Death of Metal”

Digging in the crates for metal returns a lot more misses than hits. With metal, the cream really does rise. As an example, the “New Wave of British Heavy Metal” from the ’70s is pretty flat aside from the obvious and well-known awesome-ness of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Also, Metallica is like a libertarianContinue reading “Heavy Metal Week Continues with a Quick Aside About Budgie”

When I was a teenager, Anthrax was my favorite metal band. I liked them because they dressed like surfer party guys, wrote songs about Stephen King characters and comic books and recorded a goofy rap song. Aside from the rap thing, though, what I liked about them had very little to do with their music.

Seen from a distance and when studied in minute detail, The Departed synchs up closely with Whitey Bulger. But in mid-range, they have nothing to do with each other.

Quick moment of housecleaning: I didn’t mention this in the last post, but I probably should have: I’m spending so much time on The Departed because it’s loosely inspired by Whitey Bulger. The looseness of that inspiration will be the subject of a forthcoming entry. This entry is going to be a list of problems withContinue reading “Eponymous Gangster Week Continues: Eight Terrible Things About The Departed”

The Departed is really two different movies grafted into one. Movie one is a high concept, tightly plotted movie about cops posing as criminals and criminals posing as cops. The other is a movie about gangsters in Boston, loosely based on the Winter Hill gang. The Departed is a remake of a Hong Kong filmContinue reading “Eponymous Gangster Week Continues with a look at The Departed”