Hip Hop/Rap
Joshua Boydston
If Norman’s Myke Brown keeps making music as good as he does in Don’t Forget the Y, Myke with a Y is sure to be a household name.

Music
Joshua Boydston
What Made Milwaukee Famous
9 p.m. Thursday
VZD’s Restaurant & Club
4200 N. Western
vzds.com
524-4203
$7-$10

Comedy
Phil Bacharach
Judd Apatow has given us some hilariously raunchy comedies, but This Is 40 finds the writer-director in his grown-up mode, at least in intent, extracting the funny from the advent of middle age. But his understanding of life in the 40s isn’t necessarily the universal kind.

Western
Rod Lott
As he did with 2009’s Inglourious Basterds, superstar filmmaker Quentin Tarantino looked to Italy for primary inspiration for his follow-up. In Django Unchained, he’s cribbed the country’s spaghetti Western genre, shoehorned the all-American slavesploitation film into its center, and rewritten another ugly chapter in world history while filtering it all through his Movies Unlimited catalog lens.

Rock
Louis Fowler
The Flaming Lips’ latest cover album, Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn, is a song-by-song remake of King Crimson’s 1969 classic, In the Court of the Crimson King. Naturally, it’s only available on hard-to-get, limited-edition colored vinyl.

Thriller
Rod Lott
When cast in the right role, which is rarely and does not include Magic Mike, Matthew McConaughey can be an electrifying onscreen presence. His breakthrough bit in 1993′s Dazed and Confused is one of those times; Killer Joe is another.

Action
Phil Bacharach
Due to the twisted savagery of a young man in a Colorado movie theater, The Dark Knight Rises will forever be a footnote in American history. Hopefully, that horrific massacre will not influence perceptions of this epic conclusion to writer-director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.

Television series
Rod Lott
A noticeable difference exists with Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXV from Shout! Factory’s previous sets: This one is comparatively light on extras. However, that’s hardly a knock against it, because the show itself is just too damned good on its own.

Television series
Rod Lott
While a bit too stiff-upper-lip for my tastes, Synapse Films’ release of the British TV series Chiller is welcomed nonetheless. Any release of a horror anthology is, especially one this little-seen.

Action
Rod Lott
Fifth in the increasingly slick but decreasingly lucid franchise, Resident Evil: Retribution had potential to be the best entry since the 2002 original. After all, returning director Paul W.S. Anderson (The Three Musketeers) has positioned so many elements from the previous films that it seemed set up to play like a greatest-hits package. Instead, the result is baffling.