THE SPECIAL EDITION: 02.08.2011

The Last Play at Shea is an attempt at bridging the world of Billy Joel with the history of the New York Mets. Alec Baldwin narrates this look at two storied icons who modern audiences love to shit on. Early in the documentary, Joel brings up that he sold out Shea without releasing a new album in 15 years. People laugh, but they know what Joel is getting at with his opening jab. He’s a frustrated little man who has built a career out of being a frustrated little man. His biggest hits are about wanting, lust and desire. Compare that to the Mets, who have spent a lifetime in the shadow of the Yankees. That’s where you see the magic of the documentary, as you try to root for two icons that have managed to blossom in dung.

Middle Men is a great flick about the can-do business attitudes that made Internet porn possible. The problem with the film is that it relies on way too much on films like Wonderland and Boogie Nights to set the tone. Still, it’s one of those smaller flicks that plays against type and warms the heart enough with a story about a small-time business owner. That business might be selling memberships to foot fetish websites, but it’s still part of the larger American dream. That is until the FBI and Russian Mafia becomes involved. Hilarity ensues and some violence, as Luke Wilson tries to teach the world to embrace internet porn.

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978)

Director: Meir Zarchi

Anchor Bay

Buy it at Amazon!

Special Features:

Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Meir Zarchi
Audio Commentary with Author/Historian Joe Bob Briggs
The Values of Vengeance: Meir Zarchi Remembers I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE
Alternate Main Title
Trailers, TV Spots, Radio Spots, Poster & Still Gallery

I Spit On Your Grave is a milestone in rape cinema. I know that Rape Cinema has had few iconic films outside of The Accused, Deliverance and this particular film. Most people remember the flick due to Roger Ebert’s savage review of the flick. I remember it because a topless chick cut a dude’s dick off in a bathtub. Simple pleasures and thrills catch my attention, so I can’t pretend to expound on the subtext of the film. What matters is that this rip-roaring rampage of revenge is being remastered into a lovely 1080p HD transfer. Couple it with lossless audio and all of the special features from the legendary Elite Entertainment Millennium DVD for quite the trash cinema release.

Music

Section By Jeb D.

THE WORLD IS YOURS

Motörhead

BUY IT FROM AMAZON!

You don’t review Motorhead so much as a band, but more as a phenomenon. Lemmy’s time-ravaged voice has set the tone for three decades of adjectivized metal, and if Motorhead never achieved the heights of contemporaries like AC/DC, they’re not exactly Anvil, either. No points for PC here, and plenty of macho bravado: “Born To Lose,” “Get Back In Line,” “Outlaw,” “Bye Bye Bitch”-but that’s really the point. Motorhead stands for metal as lifestyle, and after all this time, if this is actually the first song called “Rock N Roll Music” that Lemmy’s ever written (I use the word loosely), I’m impressed. Words of wisdom: “All things come to he who waits / But these days most things suck.”

TAO OF THE DEAD

And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead

BUY IT FROM AMAZON!

As someone who’s generally uninterested in the adolescent testosterone that prompts bands to name themselves after blood/death/murder/yadda/yadda, and who has limited use, at best, for prog-rock, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this one. In the grand tradition of, say, Vanilla Fudge or The Electric Prunes, the band divides the album into two compositions-one 35 minutes long, the other 16-broken down into eleven and six movements respectively (and they pat themselves on the back for the cleverness of tuning each song to a different key). There’s nothing particularly remarkable about the overarching structure, but individual tracks stand on their own pretty well: “Pure Radio Cosplay” may be a bit self-referential, but it chugs along at a bracing Stones-like clip, and “Cover The Days Like A Tidal Wave” is brisk post-Velvets buzz. There’s a couple too many by-the-numbers slogs like “The Wasteland” and “Fall Of The Empire,” but overall, it’s pretty entertaining, and despite its highfalutin objectives, probably their most accessible yet.

BRIGHT MORNING STARS

The Wailin’ Jennys

BUY IT FROM AMAZON!

There’s an embarrassment of riches in the down-home female harmony department these days, from Mountain Man to the Secret Sisters, and this trio of Garrison Keillor’s favorite thrushes are certainly holding up their end. The title song is a traditional tune of loved ones’ passing, delivered with clear-eyed strength and lack of sentiment. The balance of the material is originals, ranging from the smoky lowdown of “Cherry Blossom Love” to the full-throated passion of “Storm Comin’.” Moody, Mehta and Masse construct something completely modern out of the most traditional elements, both vocally and musically: while they get excellent support from a veteran team of studio musicians, the three Jennys are pretty formidable on guitar, banjo, and accordion themselves. Your Robert Plants and Tom Joneses doing their rootsy covers is all well and good, but traditions dry up without artists who can work with them as living constructs, and this album brims with memorable composition as well as gorgeous singing. First-rate stuff.

BITCHES BREW LIVE

Miles Davis

BUY IT FROM AMAZON!

If you’ve sated yourself with the Anniversary Edition that you got for Christmas, here’s the next logical step: previously unreleased 1969 performances of early versions of songs that would, nine months later, emerge on the landmark Bitches Brew, along with Davis’ complete performance from the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, with maybe his most amazing band ever, including Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, and Airto Moreira. The booklet is nearly worth the price of the album on its own, as Davis expert Michael Azerrad updates his original liner notes with new interviews, including several with the film crew that had unprecedented backstage access to Davis and his group during the filming of the classic Message to Love: Isle of Wight Festival. The sound is well cleaned up, and the performances intense. Love it or loathe it, Bitches Brew was another example of Davis taking jazz to places that no one before, and few since, had imagined it could go: “Miles Runs Down the Voodoo” feels as though you’re inside Miles’ trumpet, if not his brain, and “Bitches Brew,” itself, blew jazz into the 21st century, even if Miles never got there himself.

Other Notable 2/8 Releases

Teddy Thompson, Bella. Mom is one of the most achingly evocative singers in the history of British pop music; Dad’s a brilliant songwriter whose guitar playing was being compared to Hendrix before he was out of his teens. If that were me, I might play it safe with middle-of-the-road folk-pop, too.

Rhino Bucket, Who’s Got Mine. If you want people to pay attention to your crack-voiced, pounding rock n roll, you might try not releasing it the same week as the new Motorhead.

Jessica Lea Mayfield, Tell Me. Mayfield’s probably best known for her guest vocals with The Black Keys, and Dan Auerbach’s production returns the favor, with stark, ominous settings for her stark, ominous, and winningly personal songwriting.

Esben and the Witch, Violet Cries. There’s a “Marching Song” and they’re on the “Warpath.” They’ve even named a mystical place for a jazz pianist (“Chorea”). And the music’s all spooky n shit, and the group takes its name from a spooky Danish fairy tale and… much ado about not much; even droning singer Rachel Davies sounds bored.

Thompson Square, Thompson Square. If there’s one too many cutesy country-rock duos running loose these days, then Sugarland is the one to get rid of: Keifer and Shawna Thompson have a nice way with post-Mellencamp crunch and down-home twang, with the occasional touch of personality (“Let’s Fight” ). Some of it’s unlistenable (“Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not?”, “I Don’t Wanna Miss You”), but that’s par for the course in this field, and “One Of Those Days” wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a Lone Justice album.

For Colored Girls              $16.99  $24.99
Life as We Know It          $13.99  $19.99 $24.99
You Again                      $16.99  $24.99
Paranormal Activity 2       $15.99  $23.99
My Soul to Take                          $16.99    $24.99
It’s Kind of a Funny Story      $16.99     $25.99

Ong Bak 3                                      $16.99      $19.99