CHUD

Special Features:

• Divorce: Circa 1960’s
• Marketing The Mustang: An American Classic
• How To Succeed In Business Draper Style
• 1964 Presidential Campaign
• Audio Commentaries on all 13 episodes

Mad Men had an amazing first season. The show had an amazing second season and the third year was pretty epic. This season starts almost a year later, as SDCP has emerged from the wreckage of Sterling Cooper. Don Draper is living in the city as a newly divorced man, while January Jones continues to prove that she has no right being on the show. Joan and Roger do the progeny hustle, while Peggy shows the rest of the office that she is their equal or better. More importantly, this season serves as a character builder similar to Year 4 for The Sopranos. Draper must come to terms with his main persona and the lingering effects of being Dick Whitman. Slowly but surely, he’s losing the anchors to his old life and he has to carve out a new identity. Even if it means a trip to Disneyland.

TANGLED

Walt Disney Pictures

DVD
• 2 original storybook openings
• 50th Animated Countdown 2-Disc BD Combo Pack (BD+DVD)
• DVD features plus
• 3 deleted scenes
• The Making of a Fairy Tale
• 2 extended songs
• 9 Theatrical Teasers

Tangled is an amazing return to form for Disney. Sure, it was virtually redone twice and resulted in the departure of animation giant Glen Keane. But, the movie is a gorgeous advance in CG animation. Blending together with painted backdrops, the animators have created a stylistic meld of old world and digital age that results in a visual treat. The Alan Menken music is fun, but it’s Mandy Moore who steals the show. Playing off Zachary Levi, Mandy Moore gives little girls the first caucasian Disney Princess in nearly twenty years. The Special Edition release is pretty strong, as it boasts one of the strongest transfers in recent memory. However, I wanted to hear more about Keane’s process and what caused the shifts for the final version of the film.

BLACK SWAN
Director: Darren Aronofsky

20th Century Fox

Special Features:

Featurettes
Documentary

Black Swan turned the concept of the unreliable narrator on its ear. Natalie Portman’s Nina is simply amazing in the way that Roman Polanski heroines used to be before he stuck it in a thirteen year old’s butt. Playing off of Mila Kunis’s amazing performance as Lily, Nina allows for Aronofsky to stage his balancing act. Aronofsky has a way to blend a masterful script into a stunning display of cinematography and editing. If that wasn’t enough of a reason to pick it up, you’ve got simulated box munching. I hate breaking an amazing film down to its lesbian cinema sex, but if that’s what it takes to get your ass to see this film…I’ll scrape the bottom of that barrel. Barbara Hershey and Winona Ryder also appear in smaller roles without box munching.

TEEN WOLF

Director: Rod Daniel

MGM/20th Century Fox

Special Features:

Nothing

Teen Wolf is a special film about the power of lycanthropy. The Lycan American discovers the powers mid-puberty and they learn to grow in secret. This film allows Michael J. Fox to showcase the struggles of a teenage Lycan, as he learns to abuse his powers to destroy chumps at basketball. Eventually, the normal humans learn to fear Fox’s ability to undermine their faith in humanity. Scott Hampton stars as the loveable father Lycan, while Mark Holton continues to play the fat guy. Mark Holton made a career of playing the fattie and you will see every inch of gut in glorious 1080p. This a recommended purchase.

Music

Section By Jeb D.

THE KING OF LIMBS

Radiohead

Bruce Springsteen once told an interviewer that he wished his record company could just dump all the pre-release hoopla and buildup, so that a fan could just walk into a record store one day, and there would be the new Springsteen album. If there is any band working today that seems likely to actually effect something like that paradigm shift, it’s Radiohead. They took a step in that direction with In Rainbows and its “pay-what-you-can” download pricing, and for The King of Limbs, the band more or less showed up one day, and “pre-leaked” their own album, so that the new Radiohead release seemed almost to appear out of nowhere. And since they managed to shift boatloads of In Rainbows when it finally did hit CD, a second success on the same order is going to be a very strong signpost for the industry. The trick, of course, is that The King of Limbs is, on the surface, not as obviously commercial a proposition as was In Rainbows. Its brisk 37 minutes are (naturally) soaked in atmosphere, but the individual tracks seem more designed to sneak up on the listener than make immediate impact. “Bloom” kicks things off with scratchy acid jazz, and “Morning Mr. Magpie” and “Feral” feature deep, ambient grooves (and Selway’s drumming throughout is sampled and reworked imaginatively). What an earlier generation might think of as “Side Two” is more conventionally song-oriented, punctuated by the single, “Lotus Flower,” and the haunting “Give Up The Ghost” and “Codex”: “”Jump off the end / Into a clear lake / No one around.” The Radiohead faithful have already squared off on this one, and those looking for clues in the lyrics (“Stolen, all the magic / Took my melody“) have pointed up the album’s closer kinship to Yorke’s The Eraser than In Rainbows, to say nothing of earlier outings. Personally, I think there’s enough going on, both on the surface and beneath, to make it one of their most re-listenable releases yet.

ALL ETERNALS DECK

Mountain Goats

For a guy who’s released an average of almost an album a year for nearly two decades, John Darnielle is still one feisty SOB: “We are young supernovas / And the heat’s about to break.” I suppose you can argue that he’s mellowed a tad over the years: this is probably the best-sounding (in a conventional sense) Mountain Goats album yet; a far cry from the primitive early work (which is not the same thing as an advancement). It’s worth the trouble he takes, though, as the band expertly blends piano, cello, and string sections into the sound, without losing the elemental punch underneath. And while there’s touches of obvious kitschiness on things like “Damn Those Vampires!”, the album can startle you again and again with tracks like “High Hawk Season” and “Outer Scorpion Squadron.” And if anyone in pop music has come up with a better metaphor on the relationship of artist and audience than “We hold hands and we jump / And as we fall, we sing,” I’ve missed it.

TOP HAT CROWN & THE CLAPMASTER’S SON

The Band of Heathens

Given the name, the love of Americana, and the multi-instrumental, multi-vocalist, multi-songwriting collective in charge, the obvious comparison is to The Band, but this album actually puts me in mind of what that Elton John-Leon Russell album might have sounded like if either of them had still been alive when they recorded it: the pumping gospel piano, pop-soul touches, and occasional down-home weirdness, were the hallmark of Elton’s salad days, and Russell’s Shelter People period. Gordy Quist’s “Medicine Man” kicks things off with a slice of Cajun-tinged ‘cue. “I Aint Running” has more Crescent City vibe, while Ed Jurdi’s “Should Have Known Better” is all gutbucket soul. Colin Brooks gets his licks in on the slightly-out-there “Gravity,” and on “Enough,” he would seem to be anti-hoarding, so good for him. And they dig into American roots traditions for more than musical effects: “Free Again” is a moving, angry remembrance of the Gulf oil spill, while “Hurricane,” though actually a cover, is a frighteningly prescient picture of Katrina as a young Bernie Taupin might have seen it. And “Polaroid” manages to simultaneously invoke the Jayhawks and Rubber Soul-era Beatles, a trick you won’t hear on too many other albums this week.

CAPTAIN BLACK BIG BAND

Captain Black Big Band

CLICK TO TRY AND BUY FROM AMAZON. GOOD LUCK.

Pianist Orrin Evans understands a simple principle too often overlooked in jazz: challenging, intense music can still swing. It’s a tribute to his leadership skills that the rotating band of more than three dozen New York and Philly players he assembled for these 2010 live recordings take this to heart, and have a rhythmic sympatico that makes it sound like they’ve been playing together for years. The first two tracks, “Art of War” and “Here’s The Captain” introduce the theme: in-your-face modern jazz, all hard blowing and relentless drive, but with an expansive clarity. From the squalling sax madness of “Jena 6” to the sly riffing on Handel’s “Messiah” that fuels “Inheritance,” every track is layered with enough astonishing expert playing that you’ll literally need two or three spins through the album before you’ll even begin to hear everything that’s going on. It’s definitely not what you probably think of as a “Big Band” album: rather, it’s an album that expands your horizons as to just what a Big Band can do, and can be.

Other Notable 3/29 Releases

Peter Bjorn and John, Gimme Some. Count me among those too dull or unimaginative to get just what these Scandinavian jokers were up to with Living Thing, but they appear to have returned from the world of irritating to the world of catchy. Good. I don’t know which track here, if any, will be the next “Young Folks,” but I wouldn’t seriously object to a steady diet of just about any of them.

Marcia Ball, Roadside Attractions. Any new Ball album is going to be worth your time for the barrelhouse piano playing and soulful vocals alone, but after I read that this was her first album of all original material, I tried to think of the last New Orleans performer who’d delivered an album without a single cover on it (not even “Iko Iko”). Couldn’t think of one; help me out here.

Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis with Norah Jones, Here We Go Again: Celebrating The Genius Of Ray Charles. Nelson’s dignity and restraint make him seem like an unusual choice to pay tribute to the churchy exuberance and melodrama of Brother Ray–but the resulting contrasts and juxtapositions may be why this album’s such a delight. Marsalis keeps the arrangements tricky and interesting, but never cutesy or too busy, and Jones continues to rival Neko Case as the guest vocalist of choice for intelligence and taste. The most appropriately-titled album of the week; it really is a “celebration.”

The Sounds, Something To Die For. I realize that both Blondie and Goldfrapp are still around, but if they weren’t, Maja Ivarsson and company could fill either bill handsomely.

Sum 41, Screaming Bloody Murder. Until recently, I hadn’t realized that these guys got their start as a NOFX cover band. Just imagine what they could have done with even half the wit and smarts of their inspiration: I mean, even the damn album title is trying too hard .

Snoop Dogg, Doggumentary Music. I know it’s no big deal for a guy like Snoop to have a bunch of guest stars on his album, but Bootsy Collins AND Willie Nelson? Hells, yeah. All I’ve heard so far is the single, “Wet,” but how you gonna resist “Be my head coach / So you can put me in / And never take me out / Till you taste the win“?

Los Lonely Boys, Rockpango. Their Tex-Mex never digs quite as deep as Los Lobos, and they often sound a bit too radio-ready for their own good, but “Love In My Veins,” “16 Monkeys,” and the title song cut a fine, funky groove.

Whitesnake, Forevermore. I have to admit that I hadn’t thought about Whitesnake since the last time I heard “1985.” They can still bring the noise, with some added blues harp for down-home cred. If you miss David Coverdale’s voice as much as I don’t, go for it.

Britney Spears, Femme Fatale. I suppose that taking the singing of this one-woman exploitation movie halfway seriously would be a way to establish my cred as someone who genuinely appreciates the kind of teen-friendly pop music that too often gets taken for granted. But I can manage without that.

Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, Scandalous. The vocals get by on energy more than anything like tunefulness or dynamic range, but the album’s a shitload of great dirty fun: loud, rude, hard-rocking R&B, blues and soul. < pendantic > This one actually came out last week. < /pedantic >

VIDEO GAMES

edited by: Justin Clark

sales info: Judas Booth

NINTENDO 3DS
Nintendo
3/27
$249.99

The Launch Lineup:

Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition
The Sims 3
Steel Diver
Madden NFL Football
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D
LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars
Ridge Racer 3D
Super Monkey Ball 3D
Bust-A-Move Universe
Samurai Warriors: Chronicles
Asphalt 3D
Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D
Rayman 3D
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Shadow Wars

So, uh, yeah. This is happening. Here’s the quick and dirty, peoples: The glasses-free 3D unequivocally WORKS. If you’re prone to headaches, there’s a handy switch to turn it off. Simple as that. Out of the gate, Super SF IV is the best overall package, though portable Rayman 2 would be worth it, even without the 3D, and Pilotwings is a solid, though repetitive, proof of concept. Kids will dig it, though. Ridge Racer, Monkey Ball, and Ghost Recon work as well, if those genres are your thing. The rest is fair to middling, but still collectively adds up to one of the stronger launch libraries of a system in too long, which says a lot about how shitty launches have been since the PS1. This all pales in comparison to the mind-boggling amount of extra shit the system does, some of which the people who’ve had them for the past month are still figuring out. As I write this, I’ve been playing with the thing for 4 hours and the sheer amount of capability this little fucker holds is astonishing. And there’s more to come. The battery life is weak, but if you’re seriously playing a portable for more than 3 hours at a time, plug that shit in. You buy a 3DS, you’re paying for potential. But unlike the PS3 at its launch, which made the same plea and failed miserably at delivering it the first year, it’s ASSURED potential. This system has a hell of a life ahead of it, guaranteed.

Also, mild tangent, but anyone who’s laboring under the grand delusion that the iPhone has a flaming shot in Hades at being a serious game device needs to cut that shit out. They’re aiming at two completely different subsets of gamers. Call me when I can play Okamiden or Trauma Center on my fucking cellphone.

WWE ALL-STARS
THQ
360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PS2
3/29
$59.99 360, PS3; $49.99 Wii; $39.99 PS2; $29.99 PSP

Basically, this is the result of WWF No Mercy‘s drunken fling with the Midway Wrestlemania Arcade Game from the mid-90s. And there isn’t a damn thing wrong with this. It looks ridiculously fun, and accessible, even if the character models have been spending too much time hanging out with Unreal Engine 3. At the least, it can’t be any worse than Legends of Wrestlemania.

TIGER WOODS PGA TOUR 12: THE MASTERS
EA
360, PS3, Wii
3/29
$59.99 360, PS3; $49.99 Wii

Sadly, it’s not about Tiger being literally whipped for insolence and left for dead on the back green by the elite assholes who sign his paychecks for cheating on Elin and bringing excitement and sex to a sport that affords neither, his escape and journey to the heart of Asia to learn self-respect and the killing arts of his ancestors in order to exact cruel, merciless, and uncompromising revenge against a crowd and culture that has never welcomed his presence. Instead, it’s a golf game. And that just sucks.

THE 3RD BIRTHDAY
Square Enix
PSP
3/29
$29.99

Once upon a time, I would be camped out next to a Gamestop if somebody told me a new Parasite Eve was happening. Unfortunately, the Square Enix that made the Parasite Eve games has mutated into something terrifyingly obtuse and shiftless. The once fascinatingly complex Aya Brea now acts and in some cases dresses for all occasions like a Japanese schoolgirl faced with her first tentacle rape, and the gameplay has been rendered clusterfuck.

But, naturally, the FMVs are gorgeous. Sigh.

DYNASTY WARRIORS 7
Tecmo Koei
360, PS3
3/29
$59.99