Funny People is intended to be Judd Apatow’s sophisticated comedy, the one where he grows out of dick jokes and makes a multifaceted movie about real people and real issues (not that 40-year-old virgins and one-night-stands that result in knocked-up women aren’t real issues). And in a way, it is a very grown-up movie. But there are still plenty of dick jokes and blatant displays of immaturity to keep Apatow fans happy (what do you expect with a cast that includes Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen?). Sandler plays George Simmons, a mega-popular comedian – and kind of an ass -- who makes mega-crappy movies that sound a lot like the ones Sandler makes (my favorite: My Best Friend Is a Robot). George gets some bad news from his doctor in the very first scene: He has leukemia and might not have long to live. So he returns to his roots as a stand-up comic and taps struggling comedian Ira Wright (a svelte Rogen) to write jokes for him and to help out around his mansion. At nearly two and a half hours, Funny People sags a bit during the second half, when the movie takes a turn into Apatow’s usual messy-romance territory. It’s not as consistently funny as The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Knocked Up, but it is a stronger movie and Apatow’s best film. The stellar supporting cast includes many Apatow regulars – including Jonah Hill as (what else?) Ira’s smartass roommate and Leslie Mann (Apatow’s wife) as George’s ex-girlfriend – as well as tons of cameos by real-life comedians and musicians. And Sandler has never been better, pulling off funny and serious in the same breath. Funny People is sprawling and ambitious in its reach, which is even more remarkable as post-Apatow movies like The Hangover up the comedic ante. Leave it to Apatow – one of the smartest and funniest filmmakers working these days – to raise the stakes.--Michael Gallucci
The second installment of Robot Chicken’s stop-motion Star Wars tribute is just as hilarious as the first (best is Attack of the Clones’ Geonosian battle reimagined as a monster-truck rally). All your favorite characters show up: Boba Fett, Darth Vader, Jar Jar. This DVD includes 15 additional minutes not shown on TV.
VIDEOGAME
The Bigs 2
(2K Sports)
Yeah, MLB: The Show and 2K’s Major League Baseball series are pretty damn real. But sometimes you just wanna slug away like a superhuman. That’s where this fun game (for pretty much every videogame system out there) steps up with tons of crazy gameplay (gravity-defying leaps, speed barrier-shattering home runs). The mini-games hit a grand slam too.
VIDEOGAME Fight Night Round 4
(EA Sports)
This has always been one of the all-time best boxing sims. The latest outing (for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360) is now the greatest. Speaking of the greatest, all the champs – including Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson -- are here. It’s the most realistic boxing game out there. Best of all, the knockout career mode lets you build a fighter from training to championship bout.
DVD
Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XV
(Shout! Factory)
The latest four-disc box starring smartass robots and some of the worst movies ever made pulls a quartet of shows from the series’ run (including MST3K’s second ep). The films – especially The Robot Vs. the AztecMummy and The Girl in Lovers Lane -- are awful. The Satellite of Love crew’s onscreen commentary makes ’em better.
COMIC
Wednesday Comics
(DC) Newspapers may be dying, but this new weekly paper featuring some of DC’s biggest heroes (Superman, Batman, Sgt. Rock) is full of life. The color newsprint makes the comic panels pop from the page; the stories make you want to pick up the next issue. Each paper is 16 pages and includes a little bit of everything from the DC universe. It sure beats Family Circus. --Michael Gallucci
You’re not imagining the chaos you hear swirling among the feedback and other glorious guitar noises on Silversun Pickups’ second album, Swoon. It’s very real. And even if the Los Angeles band didn’t actually intend for that feeling to meld with that sound, it couldn’t help but to seep into the grooves, since disorder, confusion and all those other crazy emotions are exactly what frontman Brian Aubert and the group were experiencing when they recorded the album last year.
“We were very moody and emotional after our last tour,” says Aubert. “We came home and everything was just chaotic and insane. When I hear Swoon, it reminds me of a nervous breakdown. Not that there really was one, but it kinda has that feeling. It really hits on that point.”
By then the Silversun Pickups had been on the road for more than two years. They released their debut EP, Pikul, in 2005. Carnavas, their first album, followed a year later. “We like the trial by fire,” says Aubert. “We can sit in a rehearsal space all day long with the songs, but playing live is the only way we really learn how to do it.”
After taking a month off -- basically to “live,” says Aubert -- the quartet (bassist Nikki Monninger, keyboardist Joseph Lester and drummer Joseph Guanlao round out the group) reconvened for the Swoon sessions. Aubert says he wanted to get the band back into the studio as quickly as possible to take advantage of the momentum they had picked up from being on the road for so long.
“We were quite restless,” he says. “We loved the sounds we were using, but we felt there was more in them that we hadn’t quite hit before.”
Then it dawned on Aubert: He and his bandmates had lost touch with their personal lives. The road does that to you. Aubert likes being grounded (indeed, he’s a very affable chatter who’ll roll conversations in a couple different directions before swinging them back to their starting points), but after Carnavas’ “Lazy Eye” started picking up modern-rock airplay, the Pickups were pulled from the relative safety of obscurity. “We weren’t supposed to be as successful as we were,” laughs Aubert.
Back when the indie-rock band formed at the top of the decade, not too many people paid attention. In fact, not too many people noticed when Carnavas came out. But slowly “Lazy Eye” – a Smashing Pumpkins-like slab of dream-pop dually anchored by churning guitars and Aubert’s Lindsey Buckingham-like croon – started making the rounds. It eventually reached Billboard’s Modern Rock Top 10 and snagged spots in both the Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2 videogames.
Then came the tour -- the long, long tour. The band was itching to get back into the studio, but Aubert didn’t have time to write any new songs. “There’s always that romantic notion that you’d write in the back of the bus after the show,” he says. “But after you hit that bus, it’s quiet time.”
Eventually, the Pickups began piecing together parts. Aubert hadfragments and ideas for songs, which he would share with his bandmates. Slowly the small pieces became bigger pieces and those pieces turned into songs. “We threw them all up, just to have a beginning,” says Aubert. “We never really wrote a record from beginning to end before. We were kind of a live band. So we put pressure on ourselves to make this worthwhile.”
Swoon takes the best pieces of “Lazy Eye” – like the Smashing Pumpkins-like push-pull between verse and chorus and a monster hook – and applies them to 10 songs. Aubert builds the tracks layer by layer until everything erupts in blasts of amp-shredding distortion. Just like the Pumpkins used to do. But it’s way better than anything Billy Corgan made after Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
“We tried to extract different things from our older material,” says Aubert. “There were places we wanted to go, but we didn’t really know about those places. There’s no ‘grow’ button. But we knew we wanted to move in a new direction.”
A string section gives several cuts a cozy quality that Aubert says was “definitely” intentional. It all ties into and circles back around on those mixed-up feelings the Pickups had when they returned home after two years and began making Swoon. “All of the songs were created with each other in mind,” he says. “We wanted to have all these colors in the songs and then shape the record with that. We want all of our albums to have an identity. This is our lush, emotive and warm one.”
It’s also they’re little-bit-crazy one. --Michael Gallucci
Meryl Streep and Amy Adams may get top billing in Julie & Julia, but all the delectable food the pair whip up over the course of the film deserves at least equal billing. It’s based on a book by Julie Powell, a real-life NYC cubicle drone who decides to change her life by cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s famous cookbook. Julie and Julia never meet, yet their stories crisscross, intersect and feed each other throughout the movie, which opens with juxtaposing scenes of the women moving into their respective new homes (Julie in 2002 Queens, Julia in 1949 France).
Julie -- played by Adams, less spunky and more puffy than usual -- has a reputation for never finishing what she starts (she half-wrote a novel at one point). So she sets a deadline for herself: one year to cook the entire content of Child’s cookbook, posting blogs about every dish she makes.
Meanwhile, Child (Streep, overstating) is an American living overseas with her State Department-employed husband. She begins taking cooking classes to keep busy. After being told by a bitchy teacher that she has no talent for cooking, she befriends a pair of Frenchwomen writing a cookbook (Child’s TV success would come much later).
Julie & Julia makes much of the similarities between the two women. Both were secretaries for government agencies. Both are married to supportive, food-loving men. Both have a weak spot for butter. And both have their tales told via correspondence that doubles as onscreen narration (Julie talks as she types her blog, just like in Sex and the City).
Julie’s story is the more compelling one – she’s approaching 30 and is the only person in her group of friends who doesn’t have a personal assistant. She refers to her blog as a “regimen,” never cheating on the recipes, even when some of the more challenging ones push her toward meltdowns. On the other hand, Streep’s over-the-top, comic portrayal (she nails Child’s grating vocal tics) can’t help but to recall Dan Aykroyd’s famous bloody Saturday Night Live skit, which is shown here to either acknowledge or refute its influence.
Director and co-screenwriter Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail), a chick-flick vet who’s never shied away from pouring on the glop, dispenses plenty of it in Julie & Julia. She goes for easy laughs about Child’s passion for food (the Amazonian cook comes off more fatty than foodie) and cheap gags about prepping meals (Julia chops a truckload of onions, Julie battles some live lobsters).
Still, the dishes prepared, cooked and eaten onscreen are mouth-watering. It’s easy to get lost in Julie and Julia’s obsessions. Too bad Julie & Julia couldn’t be more substantial, instead of serving us chick-flick leftovers with a side of cold ham. --Michael Gallucci
The last time Nelson recorded the American Songbook, it was on 1978’s Stardust. It not only got there years before Rod Stewart and other reformed rockers tackled the same subjects, it stands as a genre standard, a work of casual elegance by an artist who’s made a career out of exploring American music and all of its complex shades. Stardust is also Nelson’s greatest singular achievement. This sequel is more polished than its predecessor, with jazz producer Tommy LiPuma replacing Stardust producer Booker T. Jones’ more soulful interpretations of songs your grandma and grandpa used to get busy to back in the day. But American Classic has such easygoing charm, it’s easy to overlook its flaws (duets with Diana Krall and Norah Jones, a jazzy take on “Always on My Mind,” one of Nelson’s few pop hits). Nelson’s unfussy readings of “The Nearness of You,” “Fly Me to the Moon” and “Come Rain or Shine” may not replace beloved versions by Frank Sinatra or Ray Charles, but his acquaintance and respect for these classics is evident. --Michael Gallucci
The latest project by everyone’s favorite swan-wearing Icelandic elf is available in five different packages. The best (and one of the cheapest) is the set that combines a live CD from a London studio with a concert DVD from the tour in support of 2007’s Volta. Cool, trippy and sublime – just like Björk!
VIDEOGAME
The Conduit
(Sega)
The controls for this Wii shooting game can be somewhat wobbly. But once you master the point-and-shoot, it’s a pretty fun ride. The single-player campaign includes a sizeable arsenal of weapons, but The Conduit really comes alive in multiplayer mode. There aren’t many good first-person shooters for the Wii. You can add this one to that short list.
VIDEOGAME
Guitar Hero Smash Hits
(Activision)
It’s basically a greatest-hits set culled from other Guitar Hero games (including Encore and Legends of Rock), but why sit through snoozers when you can go straight to “More Than a Feeling,” “Barracuda” and “Free Bird”? Best of all, you can play all 48 songs with a full band (yes, even tracks from the original game). For the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii.
DVD
The Mighty Boosh
(BBC)
All three seasons of this new-school British comedy group’s same-named TV show come to DVD in extras-stuffed two-disc sets. And unlike the episodes that air on Adult Swim, these are the original uncut U.K. versions. That means even more totally effed-up adventures with luggage-packing gorillas, poem-reciting moons and vain Yetis.
CD
The Woodstock Experience
(Legacy/Columbia/Epic/RCA)
Just in time for the 40th anniversary of the dirty-hippie fest, these five sets pair vintage studio albums by Woodstock artists with their entire festival shows. Now you can compare classics by Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Santana, Sly & the Family Stone and Johnny Winter (all released in 1969, mere months before Woodstock) with their sloppy live versions. --Michael Gallucci
The Bachelor is a barely there concept album about love, doubt and all those other traumatic things that pop up when the two are combined. It was originally supposed to be a double album, but British multi-instrumentalist Wolf trimmed the content, retaining songs that have titles like “Kriegspiel” and “Theseus.” (He’s planning a sequel consisting of the leftover tracks). Wolf has always been an ambitious type, loading his records with loads of skittering synths, baroque flourishes and bombastic vocals. On his fourth album, he throws his ambition into overdrive. “Hard Times” sounds like one of those early-’80s new-wave epics Ultravox recorded. “Oblivion”’s stabbing strings end up hijacking the entire melody. And “Damaris” is a kitchen-sink ballad complete with a choir joining in on a “rise up” chorus. But Wolf’s overstuffed cuts start losing their balance about halfway through The Bachelor. There’s only so much violin-, choral- and electro-speckled ornate pop you can cram onto a CD before it reaches a breaking point. --Michael Gallucci
James Murphy’s latest signing have already released three albums, so unlike their labelmates, they don’t sound all that much like LCD Soundsystem. They’re also more percussion-driven and groove-minded than many of their DFA peers. Still, Yacht toil in the same too-cool-for-art-school scene and load their songs with tons of bells and whistles (literally). When they snag a melody and ride it – like on the opening “Ring the Bell” and the wheezy “I’m in Love With a Ripper” – they turn See Mystery Lights into a booty-shakin’ party with brains. And “Summer Song” is about as close to a seasonal anthem as pasty hipsters will ever get. But the boy-girl duo sound so detached from their music at times, it’s hard to find a pulse. And a mere summer song won’t warm them up. --Michael Gallucci
While Wolf Parade bandmate Dan Boeckner tinkers away in electro-pop duo Handsome Furs with his wife, Spencer Krug goes for a more bombastic sound on his side project. With their third album, Sunset Rubdown finally reach that indie-prog crest Krug has been scaling the past few years. With songs about silver moons, black swans, and, yes, dragons, Dragonslayer sounds a little like a Yes album played by a gutsier Arcade Fire. But the Montreal quartet – despite the guitar solos, keyboard fills, and drum rolls – keeps things on the indier side of the quotient. You may wonder just what Krug is going on about half the time (“The buffalo have given up on the world/And Apollo? Apollo is kissing all the valley girls”), but the music comes through loud and mostly clear. --Michael Gallucci
Spike Lee’s best, and still incendiary, movie celebrates its 20th anniversary with a two-DVD set and a Blu-ray debut. Four hours of bonus material include deleted scenes, commentary by Lee, and a documentary featuring film stars Danny Aiello, John Turturro and Samuel L. Jackson. Plus, the new surround mix booms with Public Enemy’s great soundtrack.
CD
Isaac Hayes: Hot Buttered Soul
(Stax)
Hayes’ breakthrough album marks its 40th anniversary with a pair of bonus radio edits. There are also new liner notes by My Morning Jacket’s Jim James. But it’s the original album that still resonates: Four tracks – including hit covers of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and “Walk on By” – that form a super-sticky song cycle. Sadly, “Chocolate Salty Balls” isn’t one of them.
CD
Major Lazer: Guns Don’t Kill People … Lazers Do
(Downtown)
Hipster-approved DJs Diplo and Switch are behind this cool project, which pairs mostly anonymous dancehall artists with the duo’s bizarro beats. They Auto-Tune a baby, bury vocals under tons of blips and beeps, and throw a few animals into the aural mix. The sex rhymes are a total waste; Diplo and Switch’s sounds are totally awesome.
TV
SpongeBob SquarePants
(Nickelodeon)
The world’s most annoying/lovable talking sponge celebrates 10 years with an oceanful of specials this week. At 8 p.m. Friday, a 50-hour marathon launches with a new episode about SpongeBob’s cherished pants shrinking in the dryer. It wraps up at 7 p.m. Sunday with 10 new eps. And be sure to catch the hour-long documentary on VH1.
TECH
Star Wars Mimobot
(Mimoco)
We love this line of Star Wars flash drives, which has featured everyone from C-3PO to Boba Fett. The latest batch includes the clone Captain Rex and two Darth Vaders (one looks like Hayden Christensen underneath the helmet, the other looks like the guy who played Anakin in Return of the Jedi). Our favorite: Darth Maul, a badass even when he’s in our pocket.--Michael Gallucci
Todd Snider has really grown into his role as one of our most undervalued but proficient songwriters. After a dozen years and almost as many albums, he finally found the perfect balance for his sharp political satire and stories about down-on-their-lucks drunks and junkies on 2006’s The Devil You Know. This proper follow-up (there have been a rarities collection, a live disc and an EP in the meantime) is less politics-oriented than Devil but every bit as caustic. The weepy “Greencastle Blues” features some dexterous wordplay (“You know the number one symptom of heart disease? The number one symptom of heart disease is sudden death”), and on “Money, Compliments, Publicity (Song Number Ten)” Snider muses on success while sounding like a new-school Randy Newman. Best is “America’s Favorite Pastime,” a true story about Pittsburgh Pirate Dock Ellis, who pitched a no-hitter in 1970 while on LSD. It’s a fitting tribute to Snider’s favorite kind of character: an American hero whose flaws and talents are indistinguishable and often interchangeable. --Michael Gallucci
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is where the mega-popular series about the boy wizard gets dark. Not that it was all Quidditch and giggles before J.K. Rowling published her sixth Potter book in 2005, but this is where things start to boil over and someone very close to Harry and his pals, gulp, dies.
As the penultimate story in the series, TheHalf-Blood Prince plays a lot like The Two Towers, the middle part of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In a way, it’s just a stepping stone between exposition and climax. But it’s also a crucial part of the tale – perhaps the most important link, the chapter that tidies up some past questions and opens up a crapload of others.
In The Half-Blood Prince, evil Voldemort’s presence lurks in the corridors of Hogwarts, even though he’s MIA in the movie. Something bad is definitely brewing, and grand old wizard Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) wants to make sure Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his trusty schoolmates, Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), are prepared. Meanwhile, everyone’s libidos are out of control. As if the oncoming darkness wasn’t enough to deal with!
The film opens with a dazzling scene of the Death Eaters (black wisps of smoke that transform into Voldemort’e minions, including one played by Helena Bonham Carter) causing havoc throughout the city. In a café on the other side of town, Harry is flirting with a waitress. These two images set up TheHalf-Blood Prince’s central themes.
Harry, Hermione and Ron’s relationships – with each other and with various other young wizards and witches – take up a sizable chunk of the movie’s narrative. Much is made of these budding romances; the horny teens’ raging libidos fuel much of the onscreen tension. All the human feelings rub nicely against the increasingly menacing fantasy world. Director David Yates keeps the tone dark and gothic, staging some genuinely creepy scenes (particularly the climatic cave battle).
The movies and actors have gotten more assured over the years. It helps that The Half-Blood Prince is one of the best Potter books, but this is also one of the best films – assertive, thrilling and funny. Still, it can’t help but feel like a bridge at times (the final chapter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be divided into two parts onscreen; the first is due next year). But what a sturdy bridge it is. --Michael Gallucci
Everything you need to know about Rancid’s first album in six years can be found on “Last One to Die.” “We got it right/You got it wrong/We’re still around,” Tim Armstrong sings. “We knew from the very first show what it was all about.” Let the Dominoes Fall is the East Bay punk band’s self-congratulatory comeback, in which they repeat themselves, crib the Clash, get self-righteous, and cram 19 songs into 45 minutes. It’s a rousing listen, even if the brutal power-kick isn’t quite there anymore. Still, very few punk bands have aged this well. --Michael Gallucci
The movie’s tagline claims “Borat was so 2006.” And in a way, Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to his hit comedy about a horny Kazakhstanian on a U.S. road trip is a little different. But in so many other ways, Brüno is a lot like the wildly hilarious Borat. For one thing, Cohen and director Larry Charles take their camera into the real world, capturing real people’s reactions to the very real things happening in front of them. Last time Cohen brought a bag of his feces to the dinner table; this time he has his anus bleached while fielding a phone call from his agent. Cohen plays super-gay Austrian TV fashion-show host Brüno, who heads to L.A. to become famous – “the biggest Austrian superstar since Hitler,” he says. Like Borat, he manages to dupe and get under the skin of various homophobes, celebs and pretentious assholes. And like Borat, there’s more set pieces than plot here. Brüno crashes a fashion-show catwalk. Brüno plays an extra on the TV show Medium. Brüno interviews Paula Abdul. Brüno interviews (and comes on to) Ron Paul. Brüno adopts an African baby (who he names OJ). Brüno joins two swinging couples on their sex night. It’s totally funny and totally gay. There’s really no way to top Borat, so Cohen goes for more offensive laughs. Thought Borat’s wrestling scene was too much? Wait till you see Brüno’s. And while Cohen takes it kinda easy on a minister who promises to make the flamboyant Brüno straight (the lispy-accented Brüno does tell the “gay converter” that he has great “blow-job lips”), his hunting trip with a bunch of southern good ol’ boys is uncomfortably brilliant. --Michael Gallucci
The Low Anthem are a less kind, less gentler Fleet Foxes. Or maybe a rowdier Bon Iver. On its second album, the Rhode Island trio strays from its dusty Americana trail from time to time, stopping for drunken singalongs and relatively wall-rattling rave-ups. Like the Foxes’ and Iver’s breakthroughs from last year, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin is a late-night meditation on solitary rural life. Acoustic guitars, harmonicas and whispered vocals drift through many of the songs. The opening one-two punch of “Charlie Darwin” and “To Ohio” barely rouses the band from its sleepy fog. But by the time they get around to “The Horizon Is a Beltway,” they’re unleashing a boisterous stomp that sounds like Tom Waits fronting the Pogues. The Low Anthem are certainly more varied and adventurous than many of their indie-roots peers. A cover of Waits’ “Home I’ll Never Be” nods to an obvious inspiration, but it’s songs like “Champion Angel” -- the ones that push Bon Iver’s cabin fever toward a bit more aggressive direction – that drive Charlie Darwin’s evolution. --Michael Gallucci
Think of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros as the U.S. version of the Arcade Fire. Or the unwashed-hippie version of the Arcade Fire. The comparisons are inevitable, since the 10-member, L.A.-based crew load the intricately arranged songs on their debut album with accordions, trumpets and tons of percussion. The opening “40 Day Dream” even marches along like one of Win Butler’s tightly packed compositions. Frontman Alex Ebert has a shakier voice than Butler, occasionally elevating it to an ear-piercing falsetto. But the Canadian collective has never been as playfully silly as the Zeros get on “Janglin,” which includes whistling, a mid-song detour and bubbly “ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bas” straight out of a swingin’-’60s flick. They can’t quite sustain this momentum for a full hour, often sagging under the weight of their overstuffed ambition. But Up From Below’s freak-folk take on chamber-music puts a summery spin on some familiar sounds. --Michael Gallucci
These eight albums have been reissued on CD before, but they’re among the greatest rock records ever made. Sticky Fingers, Some Girls and Tattoo You are the ones to buy first, but you’ll find some great songs on It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll, Emotional Rescue and Undercover too. Just one question: Where’s Exile on Main St.?
CD
Elizabeth & the Catapult: Taller Children
(Verve Forecast)
This NPR-approved NYC group rolls its influences all over its debut album. You’ll hear classical, folk, pop, rock and a few other old-school genres melding on this laid-back mix. Frontwoman Elizabeth Ziman is the focal point here – sultry and jazzy one minute, spunky and poppy the next. Plus, she smack downs spoiled little rich boys on one of the album’s best songs.
DVD
Flight 666
(UMe)
Last year, veteran metalheads Iron Maiden played 23 concerts in 45 days. This documentary chronicles the tour that took them from Sydney to Tokyo to Los Angeles to Toronto (and pretty much every place in between). The whole thing was made possible by the band’s big-ass plane, Ed Force One -- the movie’s real star. There’s also lots of music.
VIDEOGAME
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10
(EA)
Hot on the heels of the U.S. Open, the world’s best golf sim (for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii) doesn’t really break any new ground this year, but it’s still loads of fun. And it’s getting more realistic every year. You can even hear crowd reaction to other golfers’ shots while you’re trying to sink that crucial putt. Talk about pressure.
VIDEOGAME
Virtua Tennis 2009
(Sega)
This series (for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii) improves on its last outing by throwing more players, courts and tourneys into the mix. But it’s still pretty much the same game, with plenty of practice and training modes to get you ready for the big match. Best of all, the mini-games – like Alien Attack and Meat Defender – are equal parts goofy and fun. --Michael Gallucci
Apparently Jack White is one of those guys who can’t sit still. When he isn’t making records with his full-time band the White Stripes, he’s leading the Raconteurs, a side project he co-fronts with pal Brendan Benson. During that group’s break he’s formed another band, this one with the Kills’ Alison Mosshart on vocals. But unlike his star status in the White Stripes and Raconteurs, White’s role in the Dead Weather is a bit less showy. In fact, his familiar voice can be heard on only a few songs – in the background, no less. And he doesn’t even play guitar (Dean Fertita from the Raconteurs’ touring band takes over those duties). He’s the drummer. And his trippy, thudding work behind the kit suits Horehound’s potent mix of psych-rock and garage-blues. Opener “60 Feet Tall” sounds like it crawled out of a swamp and onto a roadhouse stage still dripping with muck. “Hang You From the Heavens” pushes and pulls Mosshart in so many directions, it isn’t so much frustration as defiance that steers her line “I’m walking away now.” And “New Pony” sheds plenty of fuzzbox fireworks. The Dead Weather can’t quite shake their side-project foundation -- the band and album were thrown together in the time it takes most groups to mix one song, and it often sounds like it – but White’s restlessness once again yields some equally restless music. --Michael Gallucci
The Mars Volta have always been about the noise – the rolling, room-shaking, mind-blowing, and beautiful noise. On their fifth album, they go kinda quiet, turning down the amps and turning up the soft lights. The lyrics are still so cryptic you’ll need Wikipedia and a bong to help penetrate them, and there’s still a heavy air of pretension hovering above the eight songs. But the Mars Volta sounds like a band uncertain of its future on Octahedron. Apparently they got tired of twisting and turning at 400 mph for marathon sessions – only one song breaks the eight-minute mark (there are three seven-minute tunes, so don’t worry, endurance fans). Yet without their speed and noise, frontmen Omar Rodriguez Lopez and Cedric Bixler Zavala sound lost in the cosmos. The opening “Since We’ve Been Wrong” takes more than 100 seconds to break out of its slow drone with some actual music. It also gives you a pretty good idea where Octahedron is headed and why it stumbles so often. “Communion-shaped serpent rays in prism-tail rainbows escape,” Zavala sings on “Halo of Nembutals,” sounding like one of those incomprehensible prog-rockers we used to make fun of. It’s really nothing new for these not-so-closeted prog-rockers, but the Mars Volta used to conceal lines like that in knockout tunnels of noise, not acoustic guitars and plodding 4/4 rhythms. --Michael Gallucci
The Who’s 1967 concept album gets super-sized on this two-CD set that includes more than 25 bonus songs. Released the same year as other rock milestones (like Sgt. PepperAre You Experienced?), The Who Sell Out plays like a pirate-radio broadcast, complete with commercials. Songs like “I Can See for Miles” steer the whole thing. and
CD Big Star: #1 Record/Radio City
(Ardent/Stax)
The power-pop pioneers’ first two albums have been available on one disc for years. This latest reissue tags on a couple bonus cuts. The albums themselves – which were released in 1972 and 1974 – remain essential listens, from Alex Chilton’s acoustic “Thirteen” to the windows-down rave-up “September Gurls.”
DVD
Gran Torino
(Warner)
Clint Eastwood directed two great movies last year. This one’s the best. Eastwood stars as a hard-drinking, tough-talking racist who reluctantly befriends the immigrant Asian family next door, eventually protecting them from gang members. It’s one his all-time best performances. The Blu-ray and DVD include a look at the classic car in the title.
VIDEOGAME
InFamous
(Sony)
After a big-ass explosion leaves Cole MacGrath with super electrical powers, it’s up to him (or rather, you) to save the planet. This PlayStation 3 game features tons of action – from zapping bad guys to leaping off buildings. The story’s pretty good, but it’s the gameplay itself that’ll help you lose hours of your life.
VIDEOGAME
Lego Battles
(Warner Bros. Interactive)
This cool little game for the Nintendo DS features 90 different levels of colored bricks shaped like knights, aliens, castles and pirates. It’s sorta like an RPG, as players build bases, teams and vehicles to conquer other Lego armies. The fun multiplayer mode lets you and a pal go at it till all that’s left is a pile of broken bricks. --Michael Gallucci
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