Crackjaw-Giants From the Stereo
I Scream Records Michigan’s Crackjaw is making pop-punk with metal sprinkled on top. This particular style is a big cash cow and Crackjaw could be the next Fall Out Boy’ if you dig those guys, run with the speed of a bullet to the local CD shop and get Crackjaw to go. “Giants from…
Jay Bennett-The Magnificent Defeat
Rykodisc Jay Bennett is best known as that dude that got kicked out of Wilco in that film about Wilco. One could get booted from worse bands, but the whole debacle has haunted Bennett, who has released three albums that hint at his gifts but mainly underscore why he was an excellent sideman. Perhaps…
Putney Swope
1969/2006 Very much a film of its time, Robert Downey Sr.’s anarchic satire “Putney Swope” plays now like less of an incendiary social commentary and more of an antiquated goof “? bizarre affectations, such as Downey dubbing all of his leading man’s lines, lend the film an even more dated air. The plot is…
The War Game/Culloden
1964/1965/2006 A jarring piece of docudrama filmmaking that retains its power to disturb more than 40 years later, Peter Watkins’ searing film about nuclear war and its terrifying aftermath in a typical English city was deemed too intense and violent to broadcast by the BBC in 1965, becoming a theatrical release instead. Deliberately low-budget…
John Ellis-By a Thread
Hyena Records This is some solid jazz. When he’s not been collaborating with guitar maestro Charlie Hunter, saxophonist John Ellis has found time to start recording albums with his own quintet, lately for Hyena Records. On “By a Thread,” his second album for the New York label, Ellis and his crew weave elements of…
A Nightmare on Elm Street: Infinifilm Edition
1984/2006 “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” Wes Craven’s surreal, scary breakthrough, cemented its creator as a horror director par excellence, delivered scarred maniac Freddy Krueger into America’s cinematic conscience and put fledgling studio New Line Cinema on the map —? oh, and some kid named Johnny Depp pops up here, too. I wonder if he…
