But music has more to offer than just fun and games. And with the sting of May’s natural disasters still weighing heavy on Oklahomans, Support Local Heroes: Vol 1 — a 10-song compilation of Chevy Music Showcase artists benefitting ongoing disaster-relief efforts — seeks to provide both spiritual and financial aid for those affected by […]
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Juggin’ out
The Great American Jug Band Photo: John Thomas For calling itself The Great American Jug Band, the Norman-grown group is conspicuously light on the jug part. “We own a jug,” front man Will Gardner said. “We just don’t have anyone to blow into it.” But really, the jug always was meant to be more than […]
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‘Vital’ signs
Eleven years in, and few alternative bands can claim the sort of consistent success and stability that Anberlin has. With six successful studio albums and tours with 30 Seconds to Mars and Taking Back Sunday under its belt, the group has enjoyed a smooth ride. “A lot of bands can’t keep together a year, let […]
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Smith Westerns — Soft Will
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 […]
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Full steam ahead
Photo: Tess Baez Seventeen years is a long time for anyone. For a rock band, it’s an eternity. Yet things haven’t gotten stale over the course of Traindodge’s nearly two decades together, thanks in part to a willingness to evolve that finds the Oklahoma City act chugging along as strong and excited today as it […]
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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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The Best Film You’ve Never Seen: 35 Directors Champion the Forgotten or Critically Savaged Movies They Love — Robert K. Elder
Luckily for Elder and his readers, there’s plenty more. A companion of sorts to Elder’s 2011 book The Film That Changed My Life, the Chicago Review Press paperback operates on several levels, from learning tool to reference guide to Netflix queue-filler. As with the earlier work, the author leans on 35 directors to build its […]
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Jack the Giant Slayer
The film’s fatal mistake? Perhaps it was director Bryan Singer embracing the 19th-century nature of the story as tightly as he did Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie for his own Superman Returns. These days, to satisfy family audiences, it’s evidently not enough to revive an old-fashioned tale; you have to hip it up with nods […]
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6 Souls
See, he’s not your everyday schizophrenic, but a supernatural one, playing host to a half-dozen souls (hence the title) sharing one common thread: They were murdered. It’s an intriguing idea, and for a while, co-directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein (Underworld: Awakening) do it justice. Alas, it cannot last. Once the story moves into the […]
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Tower Block
The title refers to an apartment complex built post-WWII, a title card informs us. Once attractive and affordable, the place deteriorated over the decades into England’s equivalent of Chicago’s infamous Cabrini-Green, to the point of demolition. As the thriller opens, only the top floor of Serenity House, aka Tower Block 31, awaits removal and rehousing. […]