Album Reviews
The Vaselines
Enter the Vaselines
Jul 03, 2009
The legions exposed to a glimpse of The Vaselines via Nirvana’s ragged crunch pop takes on “Son of a Gun” and “Molly’s Lips” from Incesticide were given a panoramic view when Sub Pop reissued the act’s entire discography with 1992’s The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History. The collection, which included their sole LP Dum-Dum, along with the Son of a Gun and Dying for It EPs, evinced an unlikely yet brilliant meeting of C86 effeteness with the roughshod, reckless strains of The Velvet Underground circa White Light/White Heat.
Classic Interviews
Jason Falkner
Can You Hear Me Now?
Jul 01, 2007 Web Exclusive
It takes roughly 2,200 people to fill the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles, and a full house would just about satisfy Jason Falkner’s modest commercial ambitions, if he ever gets the chance to play there.
Book Reviews
Robert Greenfield
A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the Sixties
Jul 01, 2009
Robert Greenfield’s A Day in the Life chronicles the rise and fall of two lovers so engrossed in various self-serving pursuits that they often bordered on sheer subversion. Susan “Puss” Coriat and Tommy Weber spent their early lives sheltered by wealthy families with the good grace of beauty to carry them well beyond their means. By the late ’60s, their indulgence in drugs and living on the edge day-to-day shifted them into a world of oblivion and reckless abandon, which led to Puss’ suicide in 1971.
Comic Book Reviews
Batman: Mad Love and Other Stories
DC
Jun 17, 2009 Web Exclusive
Devotees of Batman: The Animated Series will no doubt recognize writer Paul Dini and artist Bruce Timm's seminal Batman one-shot, Batman: Mad Love. Mad Love and Other Stories' centerpiece recounts Harley Quinn's dark origin. This tale of obsessed love was later adapted into an episode of the series and finds Quinn at her emotional nadir; trying to impress her "Puddin'" (The Joker) by offing ol' Bats. Once a psychologist for Mr. J, her insanity reveals some surprisingly adult-oriented sexuality.
News
Vivian Girls Announce Tour
Jul 03, 2009
Vivian Girls have announced their summer and fall tour plans in anticipation of their upcoming new release Everything Goes Wrong.
Interviews
Torchwood’s Eve Myles
Jul 03, 2009 Web Exclusive
When Welsh actress Eve Myles recently found out she was pregnant, she made sure that her baby was of this Earth. "We checked on the scan that it was a human and was not an alien," Myles jokes. Gwen Cooper, the secret government agent that Myles plays on the British sci-fi show Torchwood, was pregnant with an alien baby last season, so Myles jokes that her mother was especially pleased to know fiction wasn't bleeding over to reality.
Pleased to meet you
The Phantom Band
Jul 02, 2009 Winter 2009 - Anticipated Albums of 2009
From their nebulous beginnings as cut-up pranksters, employing Felliniesque stage prop stunts like stairmasters and smoke-breathing wolf heads as well as an extemporaneous set of band names (NRA, Robert Redford, Tower of Girls), the wildly eclectic Glaswegian sextet The Phantom Band have gradually metamorphosed into a proper band and settled on the appropriately elusive moniker. Now they’ve got a great debut LP, Checkmate Savage, to show for it.
Blog
Michael Jackson: The End of Kings
Jun 26, 2009
Michael Jackson is gone, and public reactions are about evenly split between those focusing on his greatness and those focusing on his weirdness. He locked down both adjectives—redefined them, in fact, and will serve as a standard for both great and weird for a long time to come.
Live reviews
Grizzly Bear at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, CA June 19, 2009
Jul 01, 2009
After spending an indeterminate amount of time—minutes? hours?—reading text messages from the audience scrolling across the screen above the stage, the house lights at the Wiltern came down. Brooklyn-based quartet Grizzly Bear strolled out and took to an unusual formation onstage: Chris Taylor (bass, clarinet, flute, sax, etc.) to the far left, Ed Droste (vocals, guitar, autoharp) to his right, Daniel Rossen (vocals, guitar, keys) next over, and Christopher Bear (vocals, drums) to the far right. With the band in full array, each member markedly contributed to the intricate unfoldings that fashion the Grizzly Bear repertoire.
Media
Cinema Reviews
Day 6: Los Angeles Film Festival
Jun 25, 2009 Web Exclusive
Dear Lemon Lima takes an offbeat yet compassionate look at heartbreak and identity discovery at the onset of teenagehood.
DVD Reviews
Waltz with Bashir Blu-ray/DVD
Studio: Sony
Jun 22, 2009 Web Exclusive
One of the most acclaimed and innovative documentaries of 2008 is now available on DVD and Blu-ray. Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir is an animated documentary about his experiences as an Israeli veteran in the First Lebanon War.
Television Reviews
Transformers: The Complete First Season: 25th Anniversary
Shout! Factory
Jun 30, 2009 Web Exclusive
Michael Bay’s sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has just redefined what a bad movie can be, and coming out to coincide with the cinematic apocalypse is Shout! Factory’s celebration of the original animated series’ 25th anniversary. The set is a notable improvement on the now out-of-print original Rhino releases from 2002 that included cut versions of some episodes and missing animation. This new release has taken great pains to restore as much of that footage as possible to appease the diehards.
Video Game Reviews
Ghostbusters: The Video Game PS3/Xbox 360/Wii
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Jul 02, 2009 Web Exclusive
If you grew up in the ’80s, then Ghostbusters: The Video Game is up there on the anticipation scale with James Cameron’s Avatar, any upcoming Pixar project that doesn’t have the word Cars in it, or the Arrested Development movie. The game’s finally here, and it’s mostly solid, but doesn’t quite live up to the Ghostbusters III experience that many of us have been waiting for.