Capitol There’s always an underlying current of anxiety when a beloved indie band makes the leap to the majors, particularly one with as precious and precise an aesthetic as practiced by The Decemberists. Rambling, fey epics about forbidden love in the 18th century, Colin Meloy’s bracingly literate pop songs are an anomaly on the modern […]
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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
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]