// Category Archive for: Reviews

DVD Review: A Brilliant Young Mind

By Sachin Hingoo

A Brilliant Young Mind, sadly changed from its far-superior UK title, X + Y, is a film that shows how much a fairly overdone concept can be elevated with outstanding performances, very thoughtful casting, and an intriguing directorial vision. It’s not the most innovative piece in the world, but for the kind of sentimental comfort food it’s aiming to be, it’s satisfying and even moving. Should you watch this movie? I think you should.

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Music Review: Field Music, Commontime

By Less Lee Moore

At this point, we can safely state that the 1980s musical revival is in full flower. New Romantic, Goth, New Wave, Industrial, Shoegaze, Dance Pop… some version of all of these can be found in nearly everyone’s Spotify playlist. What of those other subgenres from the ‘80s, those bands who didn’t really fit into any category? That’s where Field Music comes in.

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Music Review: Dressy Bessy, Kingsized

By Melissa Bratcher

After a seven-year hiatus, Denver-based Dressy Bessy have returned with the sugary popified, jittery delicious Kingsized. Joined by a who’s who of the what-used-to-be-college-radio stalwarts (but is surely called something else now), Kingsized is a return to form with an added grittiness. Guitars are fuzzy and heavy, providing a smart counterpoint to meringue light, sunshiny melodies and Tammy Ealom’s distinctive vocals (think: the sound of the Shangri-La’s smoking under the bleachers with the Slits).

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Music Review: JD Souther, Black Rose

By Melissa Bratcher

Thank you, Omnivore Records, for reissuing JD Souther’s albums. The recent reissue of Souther’s debut, John David Souther, was like reading a blueprint for Americana music. Souther’s follow up album, Black Rose, shows an artist broadening his horizons, marrying jazz with rock and coming up with something unexpected but very effective.

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Music Review: Peter Murphy, Wild Birds Live Tour

By Jeffery X Martin

There’s a joke: Old Goths never die, and if they did, how could you tell?

While Robert Smith is arguably the queen of the Old Goths, their king is certainly Peter Murphy, the former lead singer of Bauhaus, who has found himself in the strange position of Gothic Tom Jones, selling out shows filled with swooning plus-sized women wearing the same black dresses they wore in 1985, while their husbands huffily cross their arms and wonder when Anthrax will tour again.

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TV Review: The X-Files, Episode 3, “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Creature”

By Jeffery X Martin

Some of the best episodes of The X-Files were the Monster of the Week shows, where the mythology is forgotten about for a moment and we get to focus on a separate case. It makes sense that we would get one of those episodes in the mini-series, and here it is.

Mulder and Scully investigate a case with multiple victims, and those who survive claim the perpetrator is a monster. It’s a typical X-Files setup, with a creature living in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, but there are a couple of differences. It’s not a werewolf. It may not really be human at all.

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Music Review: Game Theory, Lolita Nation (Reissue)

By Chelsea Spear

Since its release and quick deletion, Game Theory’s third official LP, Lolita Nation, has carried with it a mystique. Is it because it’s the third album, as producer Mitch Easter has suggested, or because it’s been impossible to find and prohibitively expensive for so long? Now that Scott Miller’s magnum opus is widely available, will we discover that this is actually an average album for the era and subgenre? Happily, Omnivore’s long-awaited reissue reveals an idiosyncratic and breathtakingly ambitious release by a cult-favorite songwriter and band who deserved a greater place in the 1980s college-rock firmament.

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TV Review: F is for Family, Season 1

By Tyler Hodg

Netflix’s latest original adult-oriented cartoon, F is for Family, is racist, homophobic, and misogynistic–all in the name of satire.

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Music Review: Ty Segall, Emotional Mugger

By Less Lee Moore

American nightmare, guilty generation / fingers on the pulse of their parents’ alienation / from the history, histories of Western civilization
–Ty Segall, “California Hills”

There was a 1987 SPIN magazine cover story on David Bowie called “What Next, Put Together Man?” and while I can’t recall the article’s content exactly, that question has lingered in my brain ever since. At the time I was only just beginning to grasp the depth and breadth of Bowie’s shape-shifting abilities, and it took me years to fully understand the significance of that particular query.

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Music Review: Tortoise, The Catastrophist

By Jeffery X Martin

There’s a sense of playfulness on the new album from Tortoise, The Catastrophist. It feels like listening to a card trick. Let’s call it “sleight of ear.”

Mostly an instrumental band, Tortoise comes on as Nintendo-core. The keyboards have that glorious 8-bit sound, but then the drums start and the guitar comes floating in like the backwash of a canyon echo. Almost imperceptibly, the music has moved from Bowser’s Castle to some place far more ethereal.

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