Jonathan Bates is crazy.

Nick Attfield’s book doesn’t just cover Dinosaur Jr.‘s 1987 full-length, You’re Living All Over Me. The adroit author also touches on the Deep Wound era and the reunion tours after Beyond and Farm.

It’s about time! After a 15 year hiatus, the “classic lineup” of Guided By Voices-Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Greg Demos, and Kevin Fennell—has finally returned to the studio for its first album of new material since 1996’s Under the Bushes, Under the Stars.

There have been some mighty strange Christmas albums recorded: Bob Dylan’s Christmas In the Heart, Twisted Sister’s A Twisted Christmas, and Scott Weiland’s recent Most Wonderful Time of the Year come to mind.

It’s not that the amateurish directing is at fault in Angelina Jolie’s debut as a writer/director: it borders on competent. But her atrocious script and misguided approach to the subject matter render In the Land of Blood and Honey odious.

Based on the first book of the immensely popular Millennium trilogy by the late Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson, the English-language The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo comes on the heels of the Swedish film version, which was a global blockbuster before reaching the States in a limited but long-running theatrical release last year.

Patell’s got all that pedigree, yet his sloppy entry on The Rolling Stones’ 14th British and 16th American studio album album is riddled with factual errors and even a few typos.

She’s often accused of being pretentious, cloying, and pejoratively referred to as the cinematic equivalent of “twee,” but Miranda July, as polarizing as she may be, must be commended for taking risks. The Future, her second film, finds her succeeding spectacularly.

Boris fans are used to left turns, but New Album opener “Flare,” with its hyped-up J-pop plus Mars Volta mall-prog collision, could have them double-checking to make sure this is in fact a Boris album.