Django Unchained had its New York City premiere last night, and like me you probably weren’t there. Sorry on all our behalves, everyone! Luckily we can console ourselves with the ongoing reveals of tracks from Django’s soundtrack. The latest is Unchained (The Payback/Untouchable), a mashup of James Brown’s The Payback and Tupac’s Untouchable. Ready for a listen?
You guys, I really want to love this. But despite the fact that James Brown and Tupac are both insanely dope, the track sounds like exactly half of awesome. Blame for that goes to Swizz Beats, who produced Untouchable for the 2006 album Pac’s Life, AKA the moment when the dead horse that is Tupac’s posthumous career was finally flogged into its component atoms.
Tupac was a genius, but that doesn’t mean he’s a cipher that can be fitted into whatever era wants him. His flow was built on bomb-squad influenced beats and g-funk. Warping his rap style around the bob-free beats that popped up in the aughts is like releasing a disco remix of Paul Whiteman’s version of You’re The Tops. Frankly, Untouchable is in strong contention for the absolute worst of Tupac songs.
Particularly hilarious is the fact that Swizz looped Pac to make him fit the track, so we get Tupac shouting “Y’all know me Y’a-Y’all know me” like a Shep Pettibone remix from 1988. Meanwhile, James Brown’s music was tailor made for a remix like the one used to make Unchained (The Payback/Untouchable), and the combination only makes the molestation of Pac sound even worse.
I wish they’d just requested access to Pac’s original vocals instead mashing up a superior song with an inferior song. Luckily, the beats and the remix of “The Payback” are great, and once you get used to how…
Full Story »Lifetime movies are better than movie movies. They’re melodramatic, inbred morsels of filmic stank. And the best ones — as of today — possess a sacred ingredient called “Rob Lowe’s Moustache-y Acting Talents.” As Bolingbrook, IL cop-turned-murder suspect Drew Peterson in the new TV feature Drew Peterson: Untouchable, Lowe tries on his best Da Bears accent and dons a moustache that reminds me fondly of Reno 911 and his Parks and Recreation costar Nick Offerman. You will not be able to handle his sole line of dialogue in the new teaser trailer.
OK. Just OK now. If Drew Peterson ever really uttered the line, “I’m untouchable, bitch,” I’m assuming he didn’t deliver it with effeminate, monotone dispassion. Then again, maybe that fey, stilted quality is what made Drew a serial killer. All I know is this obviously Lifetime’s finest work since the Hayden Panettiere/Marcia Gay Harden triumph Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy, where Harden all but fed her Oscar to wolves. And now, here is a triple-play of amazing Drew Peterson: Untouchable screenshots.
Untouchable indeed, bitch.
• Rob Lowe Channels Drew Peterson In Creepy Teaser for Lifetime Movie [THR]
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