Pusher Trilogy
1996/2004/2005 A gutter-level view of the Danish mean streets, director Nicolas Winding Refn’s searing “Pusher” trilogy is hard as slate “? echoing the works of Abel Ferrara, Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma, Refn’s merciless, artful character studies are a hellish triptych, up close and unavoidable. While Refn’s grungy aesthetic may be too much for…
TV on the Radio-Return to Cookie Mountain
Interscope One of the things musicians TV on the Radio do so well on “Return to Cookie Mountain” that they failed to do on “Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes,” is find a perfect way to present the band’s shambolic mix of poetry, New Wave, electro sampling and guitar by simply not caring. Each track is…
Charlie Hunter Trio-COPPEROPOLIS
Ropeadope Records Fuzzed-out, rock-infested, funk-strewn jazz: That’s what’s on “Copperopolis,” the latest album from Charlie Hunter, who remains one of the few truly innovative-yet-accessible jazz musicians on the scene today. With two familiar cats by his side’ Derrek Phillips on drums and John Ellis lending not only his always killer horn work, but also some…
The Exorcist: The Complete Anthology
1973/1977/1990/2000/2004/2005/2006 One of the scariest flicks of all time, “The Exorcist” was more than a box-office blockbuster. It was a touchstone of pop culture. The macabre tale of a sweet-faced 12-year-old girl possessed by the devil signaled a new level of intensity for horror movies and spurred scores of lesser imitators that heaped on…
Dirty Pretty Things-Waterloo to Anywhere
Interscope Trying to put the looming legacy of the Libertines’ and former bandmate/rock star cliché Pete Doherty’ behind him, Carl Barat formed Dirty Pretty Things; “Waterloo to Anywhere” is their first release, and it’s proof that Barat was underrated all along. Though indie rock inspired by punk is quickly becoming yesterday’s shtick in Brit-rock, Dirty…
Are You Scared
2006 Six teenagers wake up in a grimy, abandoned factory, their every move captured via security cameras, asked by an electronically altered voice to participate in a game where the outcome is literally life-and-death. For instance, a guy has 60 seconds to disarm a bomb using a key surgically implanted in his gut, while…
