Traditionally, bands aren’t really supposed to hit rock ’n’ roll puberty until they approach their 30s. And you’re definitely not supposed to sound as primed and polished as Smith Westerns do on Soft Will — their third studio album — when you’re barely into your 20s. Admittedly, the act’s youth and the notion of trad-rock […]
review
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Gimme the Loot
Equally affable as they are gruff, Sophie and Malcolm hustle the streets by day. By night, they’re a relentless tag-teaming duo. Literally, they tag the streets of New York, leaving their mark as would-be graffiti masterminds. When some Mets fans start spray-painting over their turf, Sophie and Malcolm come up with the idea to break […]
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Maurice Johnson — Peace, Love & Jazz
“Hello My Brother” has a sweet flute interlude that, contrary to the title, leaves me wanting to say, “Hello, my lover,” as I lay her down on a down-filled bed. The Spanish-flavored “A Taste of the Sun” follows this idea up nicely with an aural frolic on a secluded Mexican beach, if only to […]
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Various artists — Woody Guthrie at 100!: Live at the Kennedy Center
One look at the artists featured on Woody Guthrie at 100!: Live at the Kennedy Center — a concert album/DVD recorded on what would have been his 100th birthday — and his far-reaching impact is clear. Who else could influence both Old Crow Medicine Show and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello to the same […]
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Takeoff Eyeslow — The Prescription
So if Kanye wants to go off on his Alan Vega/Suicide jag, let him. We have a homegrown replacement right here in Takeoff Eyeslow, dropping an album that is a better follow-up to Graduation than anything West has done since. On The Prescription, the Norman rapper exudes sleepy passion. The first track, “Papa Robert,” doesn’t […]
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Another Round — Just Walk Away
Norman band Another Round’s latest album, Just Walk Away, could be used on the next five National Guard ads, and in no way do I mean that as an insult. When I see those commercials, I admit to rocking out and all but walking out to sign up and defend my country. With impassioned vocals, […]
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The Tower
Set on Christmas Eve (thereby also making it akin to Die Hard), the film takes place at Tower Sky, a twin-towered luxury apartment building of some 1,700 units and 108 floors. The towers connect via a shivers-inducing “sky bridge” with see-through floor. If that makes your stomach do flip-flops, perhaps it can be settled with […]
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The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
Its joke is that Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell, Hope Springs) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi, TV’s Boardwalk Empire) are improbably coiffed stage magicians in Vegas à la Siegfried & Roy, but without the tigers. As glitzy and showy as they are painfully unhip, the two friends have been working together for 30 years, but a […]
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23:59
In the opening scene of writer/director Gilbert Chan’s film, we also learn that if someone dies at that time, one minute until midnight, his or her soul will not rest in peace. Tan (newcomer Tedd Chan) tells his fellow recruits this while regaling them with ghost stories on the floor of their barracks. They’re in […]
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Come Out and Play
Francis (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Lola Versus) and the very pregnant Beth (the genetically blessed Vinessa Shaw, Side Effects) rent a boat to explore the nearby island of Punta Hueca (can’t-be-accidental translation: Hollow Point). Under a sweltering sun, they find a few kids at the dock and seemingly no else along the village’s roads or in its […]