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MGMT live in Brooklyn, July 1, 2009
The electronic/disco/pop/rock group MGMT has made a huge splash, earning spots on tours with no less than Paul McCartney and Beck. The wildly catchy “Time to Pretend,” “Electric Feel,” and “Kids” (the latter featuring a truly deranged music video) are not out of keeping with the rest of their repertoire in terms of style and…
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Explosions in the Sky live in Central Park, June 30, 2009
Explosions in the Sky is an instrumental post-rock quartet from Texas. Their characteristic formula of a chiming guitar power trio on top of pulsating drums is a bit more palatable than their extremely loud, menacing Scottish peers Mogwai (read our review of their April show in New York). Personally, I hear a kind of homogeneity…
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Keanu Reeves Comes to Save the World, in The Day the Earth Stood Still
If the least one expects of the 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still is that it merely fulfill the promise of its title, then please move right along, for the earth stands still for only a few brief moments. It is, however, a far bigger production than the 1951 original directed by…
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Klaatu barada nikto: Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still
Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of the few essential science fiction movies that has lasted, overcoming dated special effects, acting styles, and the end of the Cold War — the provider of subtext for many a horror story. In the company of Forbidden Planet (Shakespeare’s The Tempest in space), The…
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Cool Britannia: David Yates’ BBC Miniseries State of Play
The 2003 BBC miniseries State of Play is nothing less than six straight hours of intelligent drama, liberally spiced with suspense, action, and tasty plot twists. The entire epic tale is delivered by a veritable plethora of British Isles telly & film who’s who: writer Paul Abbot, director David Yates, and actors David Morrissey, John…
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California Guitar Trio & Tony Levin’s Stick Men, live at the B.B. King Blues Club, New York, June 22, 2009
The California Guitar Trio may not actually be from California (they actually hail from Belgium, Japan, and the US), but there are indeed three of them and they each play a guitar. In a way, that tells you everything and nothing you need to know. As designated spokesman Paul Richards explained during their June 22nd…
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Kristin Scott Thomas is unshowy but brilliant in Philippe Claudel’s I’ve Loved You So Long
Writer / director Philippe Claudel’s I’ve Loved You So Long is a textbook exercise in the dramatic withholding of narrative information. Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas) is released from prison after serving 15 years for an unspecified crime, and is unwillingly housed with her sister Léa (Elsa Zylberstein). Léa is initially her only ally, and her…
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Sean Penn as Harvey Milk in Gus Van Sant’s Milk
Any friend of this blog will know that I almost universally hate biopics. As I’ve complained in my reviews of Control, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and even Walk Hard, I believe that the feature film is fundamentally ill suited for biography. One seemingly minor lesson from college that wound up sticking with me…
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Circumnavigating The Guggenheim in Tom Twyker’s The International
The International may seem a little conventional coming from Tom Tykwer, director of the kinetic classic Run Lola Run, the mystical The Princess & The Warrior, and the lunatic, perverse Perfume. The International is by far his most conventional in subject matter, and lacking his energy and spirit. It especially suffers in comparison to its…
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The Decemberists Live at Radio City Music Hall, June 10, 2009
Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 (including Peter Buck of R.E.M. and Bill Rieflin of Ministry, R.E.M., and The Humans) opened with an enjoyable 30-minute set. I was unfamiliar with Hitchcock, but by total coincidence had just days before seen his appearance in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married. His quirky non sequiturs between songs (“I…
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Nine Inch Nails & Jane’s Addiction live at Jones Beach, June 7, 2009
Street Sweeper Social Club Street Sweeper Social Club, the new band formed by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, opened. Their badass cover of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” was a highlight. Nine Inch Nails It felt wrong somehow to see a band as moody and dark as Nine Inch Nails play while the sun was…
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The Tenuous Border Between Merely Scraping By and True Poverty: Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River
The title of Courtney Hunt’s suspenseful Frozen River refers to both a literal body of water separating countries, and to the tenuous border between merely scraping by and true poverty. Melissa Leo was rightly praised last year for her performance as Ray, a woman struggling to support two boys in upstate New York. Her family…