Don’t do polls! They’re addictive
The joy of politics is watching people freak out over polls. Pollsters perform them, the news outlets run them and the activist community freaks out over the results. The advantaged act as if Nostradamus had come from the 16th century with a forecast from his golden tripod. The disadvantaged seek some reason, any reason, for…
Alan Jackson-Like Red on a Rose
Arista Nashville So melancholy and introspective as to be almost emotionally monochromatic, Alan Jackson’s brooding “Like Red on a Rose” is an impressive left turn for the neo-traditionalist Nashville veteran, dialing down the sunshine streaking hits like “Chattahoochee” and infusing his evocative baritone with an almost palpable sense of pain. Jackson’s secret weapon? Placing himself…
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
2006 Functioning as a sort of alternative history-cum-mockumentary, the fitfully lacerating and often painfully funny “C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America” begs the question: Had the South won the Civil War, would life today be that much different? It’s a discomfiting thought, one sure to inspire plenty of heated post-screening discussions. Relying on faked…
Rome: The Complete First Season
2005/2006 Sprawling, bloody and compulsively watchable, “Rome” is a lavish, lascivious spectacle which unfurls like a dozen mini-movies, each fraught with political intrigue, sizzling erotic encounters and gruesome combat that puts the glossy epics of Ridley Scott, et al to shame. Transpiring during the final years of Julius Caesar’s (Ciar
Scissor Sisters-Ta-Dah
Universal Smashing UK success notwithstanding, it was entirely possible that Scissor Sisters could’ve been nothing more than a pop musical footnote after the New York-based collective scored a pair of minor hits with its discofied cover of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” and “Take Your Mama.” Not that this cheeky lot reinvented the wheel: Jake Shears…
One Take Only
2001/2006 This lightweight seriocomic crime story from the Pang Brothers was released a year before their international success with “The Eye.” In it, a low-rent drug dealer named Bank (Pawarith Monkolpisit) meets a young hooker named Som (Wanatchada Siwapornchai) on the streets of Bangkok. They fall in love and he recruits her to help with…
My Morning Jacket-Okonokos
RCA/ATO From the earliest days, shaggy, psychedelic-tinged indie rockers My Morning Jacket have been a band most comfortable in the live-wire environs of concert halls and theaters’ sprawling, dense and often stunningly powerful, front man Jim James and his Kentucky cohorts have staked a claim as one of the best live rock bands currently working…
Bob Dylan-Modern Times
Columbia The resurrection of Bob Dylan, which began with 1997’s “Time Out of Mind,” continues with the equally masterful “Modern Times.” In true Dylanesque fashion, the album’s title is a bit ironic; its sonicscape of blues, rockabilly and country waltzes isn’t exactly contemporary, but it is timeless. Sounding raspier than ever, the 65″?year”?old Mr. Zimmerman…
Hard Candy
2006 With a premise taken straight from “Dateline NBC” (handsome 32-year-old guy ensnares uncomfortably mature 14-year-old girl via sexually suggestive Internet chats), director David Slade’s ickily effective “Hard Candy” can’t sustain the nerve-fraying tension of its early scenes, falling prey to blustery, breathless monologues as the film’s climax drags on. Despite its collapse in the…
Enough, already!
We have become a nation of stupid lawsuits. Any damn fool can sue for anything and often win. Cigarette companies are running commercials against smoking while putting warning labels on cigarette packs that tell you smoking causes cancer, yet people still sue when they ” guess what? ” get cancer from smoking. The latest…
The Black Keys-Magic Potion
Nonesuch Rough. Thick. Haunting. Straight from the gut. Authentic, soulful, American blues rock. If these descriptions appeal to you, then you’re gonna love “Magic Potion,” the fourth full album from The Black Keys. It makes me feel good to say that this Ohio-based guitar-and-drums two-piece continues to stand tall as one of the last…
Akeelah and the Bee
2006 Family”?friendly movies often get a bum rap, and deservedly so, for being exercises in blandness. Consequently, an exceptional family flick like “Akeelah and the Bee” is cause for real celebration. Keke Palmer portrays Akeelah, an 11″?year”?old girl growing up in the hardscrabble environs of South Central Los Angeles. Burdened with being smart and witty,…
Seven Samurai: Criterion Collection
1954/2006 The full-blooded epic “Seven Samurai” ignited the imaginations of a generation of filmmakers, causing Akira Kurosawa’s signature work to be endlessly recycled, riffed upon and revisited in countless movies around the globe. Viewing it again, in this age of bombastic Hollywood action spectacles that teem with CG excess, it stands even taller as a…
