On the cover of Rilo Kiley’s Under the Blacklight, singer Jenny Lewis and guitarist Blake Sennett stare coldly at each other as their band mates look forward. Their romantic breakup after the release of 2004’s successful More Adventurous nearly killed the band’s momentum, especially after Lewis found acclaim with her solo Rabbit Fur Coat. The band is back with the release of Under the Blacklight, and while many critics are noting Lewis and Sennett’s Fleetwood Mac-like ability to churn out music under emotional turmoil, what’s more noteworthy is that Rilo Kiley has taken their music in a whole new direction and put out what may be their most enjoyable album to date.
Archive for August, 2007
Black and Anything but Blue
Tuesday, August 28th, 2007Bad Boys
Monday, August 20th, 2007
The heroes in producer Judd Apatow’s universe have always held an interesting mix of stunted social interaction, artificial worldliness, and the right amount of heart. Consider Andy, the gentlemanly protagonist of Apatow’s breakthrough hit The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Seth Rogen’s Ben Stone, the clumsy but chivalric everyman at the center of this summer’s Knocked Up. Eternally childish but with the principled intentions, Apatow’s leading men are easy to love and painful to observe as they flounder before females. The latest results of this formula are the heroes of Superbad, a recollection by first-time screenwriters Rogen and Evan Goldberg of the Homeric chase after sex and alcohol in the waning days of high school.
Bourne to Run
Friday, August 17th, 2007
At some point, you’d think that Jason Bourne would have to rest. Through two movies, he’s been beat up, shot at, and chased by a government that doesn’t want its secrets uncovered. Over the course of The Bourne Ultimatum, the amnesiac superspy jumps continents so often – from Russia to Italy, England to Spain, Morocco to the United States – that it can make an audience member’s head spin. But logging frequent flier miles is nothing for someone in search of a past. The result is two hours of nonstop chase scenes and the very best movie of the series and the summer thus far.
Still Crazy After All These Years
Monday, August 13th, 2007
A combination of infrequent circumstances – including my reading of the Philadelphia City Paper – inspired me to travel downtown this weekend to visit the Ritz at the Bourse for the first time since the chain had been bought out by Landmark Theatres. The reason? To catch a limited-engagement showing of the 1986 classic Labyrinth.
I hadn’t seen the movie in full in at least a decade, and like too much visual media from the 1980s, it doesn’t age perfectly. Labyrinth is a movie that makes it hard to believe that Jennifer Connelly ever won an Academy Award, impossible to believe that David Bowie went on to be a serious actor, and easy to believe that Jim Henson did some fabulous drugs. Even so, Henson’s homage to The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and a slew of other children’s stories is a wonderful bit of entertainment, and a must-see for Muppet fans and 80s nostalgists alike.
Taking Flight
Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
Upon the cancellation of Arrested Development and Veronica Mars, two of television’s most intelligent shows, fans clamored for them to be transferred to HBO, where ratings are less important and advertisers are virtually nonexistent. Anyone looking for those shows to resurface is out of luck, but they can take solace in the network’s Sunday lineup, which now boasts one of TV’s smartest shows in Flight of the Conchords.
Mad Good
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
Matt Nathanson is something of a paradox. He’s a serial jokester who writes intensely touching songs. He’s a radio-ready pop star who seems content having spent ten years under the radar. And while some might suggest that he “sold out” when releasing the robustly produced 2003 album Beneath These Fireworks (which didn’t really sell, per se); true to this dual nature, his sound benefited from the move.
Woo-hoo!
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
After nearly twenty years on the air, nearly 400 episodes, and thousands of quotable quotes, there was almost no need to advertise the release of The Simpsons Movie. But, as omnipresent as the show has become in our culture, so too was the aggressive marketing for the first movie featuring America’s favorite yellow family. The challenge, then, was not only to justify a Simpsons adventure thrice as long as the normal dosage but also to live up to the hype it built for itself. Fortunately, these stumbling blocks are, more often than not in the movie, no obstacle for the cultural juggernaut.