A refreshing bit of beach gloom, Adult Books cast a hazy shadow from Los Angeles’ generally sunnier Burger and Lollipop records mecca. Perhaps it’s a reflection of the contrast between Adult Books’ New Wave sensibilities and their hometown scene, but the band can show a bit of a split personality, alternating between excellent post-punk and pretty-good garage rock.

In his directorial debut, Robert Carlyle stars as the eponymous Barney Thomson, an embittered Glasgow barber with the skeaziest, slicked-back haircut imaginable.

It’s hard not to be moved by Emma-Lee Moss’s third album. Songs like “Algorithm” or “Shadowlawns” are pristinely pressed matters of the heart, each enveloped in sensitive melody that’s steered by Moss’s ornate vocal.

At first, Remember seems like it is geared to be a prestige drama about long percolating suffering and the thirst for revenge and redemption. Instead, Remember returns something grittier, almost along the lines of an exploitation film.

For Washington’s Monument, historian John Steele Gordon attempts a centuries-long history of the obelisk and with it tells the story of the Washington Monument.

On Nada Surf‘s eighth album You Know Who You Are, Matthew Caws and his veteran band continue to prove that they haven’t forgotten what they do best even after 24 years together.

The beauty of Malick is that he rarely spoon-feeds audiences, but still manages to be engaging despite leaving so many aspects of his films up for interpretation.

More Rain starts with silence. Then the patter of rain on tarp slowly reintroduces us to Matthew ‘M’ Ward‘s lightly graveled croon for the first time in four years. And as he sings “it’s alright if you don’t mind, it’s alright if you do” during opener “Pirate Dial” you’re reminded and reassured of the beauty he is capable of creating. It feels like finding an old friend.

Criterion gave The Graduate a presentation befitting a film of its caliber and reputation.