Best Buy’s got a Blu Ray 3D sale going on this week. Also, they’ve got the Coen Brothers Box for $19.99. Also – Ingmar Bergman’s Summer Interlude and Summer with Monika are out on Blu from Criterion. More than this…
CORIOLANUS
Ralph Fiennes redresses The Bard to address todays warmongering, and the chaos it leaves in its wake.
GOON
This film is apparently a shaggy, amiable charmer wherein Sean William Scott at least temporarily derails Kevin Smith’s violent hockey comedy. For this alone, I’d like to thank Scott, writers Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg, and Michael Dowse (Mr. Dowse, may I just say that Fubar is indeed a super rocker) for their film.
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
Tilda Swinton reminisces on raising a fiendish child in this divisive film.
Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies
The Aggression Scale
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies
Autumn
Bed & Breakfast
Brother White
Citizen Jane
Coriolanus
Dawn Rider
The Denver And Rio Grande
Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker Movie
Gintama: The Complete Collection
Gone
Goon
Il Volo: Il Volo Takes Flight Live from the Detroit Opera House
Jillian’s Travels: Africa
Man on a Ledge
Memorial Day
Murdoch Mysteries: Series 4
Nature: River of No Return
Rookie Blue: The Complete Second Season
Run For Cover
Shiki: Part 1
Shiki: Part 2
Silver City
Smithsonian Channel: Titanic’s Final Mystery
Summer Interlude (Criterion)
Summer With Monika (Criterion)
Too Late Blues
True Blood: The Complete First Season
True Blood: The Complete Second Season
True Blood: The Complete Third Season
True Blood: The Complete Fourth Season
We Need to Talk About Kevin
SIGUR ROS – VALTARI
Shifts in direction that can appear seismic to a cult band’s devotees can feel glacial outside the collegium; as a result, the fact that Sigur Ros seems to have taken a step back from the stark, brightly-recorded precipice of last year’s Inni, and resumed their aching sonic dreamscapes, will be cause for controversy among the converted, while the benighted could be forgiven for not noticing. If I tell you that the last 20 minutes of this collection of fragments and bits of abandoned projects dispense with words altogether (not even any Hopelandice ones) and mix Jonsi’s fragile croon like another layer of instrumentation, you’ll either regard this as a significant development, or ask me what the hell else I would have expected. Either way, it’s nice that the band has a sense of humor; mind you, naming an album that aims at ethereal, ineffable beauty after a “steamroller” is kind of on-the-nose as humor goes, but I like the fact that they’re trying.
REGINA SPEKTOR – WHAT WE SAW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS
Classical piano training and a bushel basket of vocal idiosyncrasies, married to a quirky worldview, has carried Kate Bush and Tori Amos for years, and Spektor’s first studio album in three years demonstrates there’s room for at least one more. There’s the usual kitschy silliness (“The Party,” “Don’t Lean On Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas)”), and her beat-boxing has to be heard to be believed (or, maybe better, not), but “Firewood” is as deeply-felt a ballad as Spektor has recorded yet: “The piano is not firewood yet / You’re not dying” may not lend itself to easy parsing, but her vocal power makes any reservations feel like quibbles. More often interesting than actually moving, but let’s not sell “interesting” short.
SAINT ETIENNE – WORDS AND MUSIC BY SAINT ETIENNE
There may have been a time in dim antiquity when the pubescent relationship between identity and pop music needed to be explicitly stated, but in a modern culture incapable of outgrowing its adolescence, it stares you in the face every day. Still, there’s something refreshing about the possibility of having a mature relationship with the sound that sustained us in youth. When 45-year-old Sarah Cracknell breathily intones a story of her teenage musical crushes and adventures,with fetishistic listing of favorite labels (“Green and yellow Harvests / Pink Pyes / Silver Bells“), or when she wonders if the pleasures of rock concerts, headphones, and Marc Bolan can endure the ravages of aging and childbirth, she manages to make it personal enough to just skirt the whiff of the nostalgia. The sound is pleasant enough, with bandmates Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs (along with an army of producers, including Richard X, Ian Catt, Nick Coler, and Tim Powell) continuing their crate-digging production, with Buckingham-Nicks era Fleetood Mac, Everything But The Girl, and Abba as particular touchstones. If you’ve ever thought about pop music much, you’ve probably hit on the insights on offer here already, but Cracknell’s an engaging companion to share them with.
OTHER NOTABLE 5/29 RELEASES:
12 Stones, Beneath the Scars
The Avengers, Avengers (reissue)
Bachman Turner Overdrive, Live at the Roseland Ballroom, NYC (aka “No New Crap!!”)
David Benoit, Conversation
Rory Block, I Belong to the Band: A Tribute to Rev. Gary Davis
Wade Bowen, The Given
Crystal Bowersox, Once Upon A Time…
Immortal, For Today
Public Image Ltd, This Is PiL
Scissor Sisters, Magic Hour
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Here
Ian Tyson, Raven Singer
The Walkmen, Heaven
ATELIER MERURU: THE APPRENTICE OF ARLAND (PS3)
How can NIS afford to constantly put out Gust and Idea Factory games? Do they still have Animerica around to advertise in? Who are these sad folks still playing Idea Factory games?
BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY – GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION (PS3, 360)
The bestest Batman thing in the last eight years gets a cheap, snazzy bundle with a bunch of costumes for Batman to wear when he punches sharks. You have no reason not to love this.
RESISTANCE: BURNING SKIES (Vita)
Poor Vita. It can’t seem to make anyone happy. Everyone seemed excited about the prospects of the dual analog sticks being used for quality portable FPS gaming – and the first FPS on the system is from one of Sony’s most beloved franchises. But as much as that seems like a recipe for success, word is the game gets it wrong across the board. I’m not surprised, it’s too early in the system’s lifespan to be trying to mimic console gaming, but the Vita desperately needs a great game that isn’t a console port. I’ve never had any interest in the Resistance franchise, but I was hoping it could give the struggling handheld the jump start it needs.
When will we three meet again…? Probably next week. Join us, won’t you?
FIN.