DVD Review: Broken

By Less Lee Moore

Broken is an apt title for director Rufus Norris’s feature debut; viewers will be forgiven if they have a hard time choking back sobs by the end. It’s not all doom and gloom, however. Broken‘s superbly arranged 90 minutes evoke a concatenation of emotions. Certainly there is much chest-constricting dread to be found in the film, and many scenes heavy with emotional baggage, but these are often simultaneously buoyed with moments of exquisite gossamer beauty and unbridled humor, reminders that joy can be ephemeral and often intertwined with grief.

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Music Review: Cate Le Bon, Mug Museum

By Melissa Bratcher

Cate Le Bon’s newest release, Mug Museum, is like something out of a fever dream. A wild mish mash of instrumental slashes and dips, coupled with Welsh native Le Bon’s unusual, beguiling voice and curious phrasing, Mug Museum is challenging listening.

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Music Review: Nikki Sudden (Waiting On Egypt, Bible Belt) and Jacobites (Jacobites, Robespierre’s Velvet Basement) – Vinyl Reissues

By Hanna

The re-issue of these four albums is part of a seven-album Nikki Sudden oeuvre re-issue from Numero Group. This, the first part, consists of the first two Nikki Sudden solo albums (Waiting on Egypt, Bible Belt), and the first two Jacobites albums, (Jacobites, Robespierre’s Velvet Basement). Together, they give an overview of Nikki Sudden’s work directly after Swell Maps.
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DVD Review: Evidence

By Brad Henderson

Sometimes we stumble upon a film we think we are not going to like; maybe that is because of the director, an actor, writer, or even the theme or setting. You might end up loving the film anyway or even consider it a “guilty pleasure”. Recently the film Evidence was released from the director of The Fourth Kind, which I did not really care for, so I wasn’t really expecting to like it, let alone expecting it to keep my attention.

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ICYMI: November 8, 2013

New this week on Popshifter: Tim says goodbye to Lou Reed; Brad wonders if everyone thought Scavengers was as bad as he did but suggests you check out The Colony; Melissa waxes rapturous about The Runaround from Wild Child and details why Buck Owens created some of the finest country music there ever was; J explains why Howe Gelb’s The Coincidentalist is much more than “just okay”; Chelsea explores the story behind A Christmas Story in her review of a new book on the film; and Jeff gives an epic intro to the man behind all those epic songs, Jim Steinman.

DVD Review: The Colony

By Brad Henderson

Whenever I see a newer flick that has gone DTV with a then or now major star on the cover, I will admit I usually pass. I know that might be wrong but most of those flicks are the same: Big time actor dies within the first five minutes. Done. Rest of the flick blows.

The other day I saw a cover for The Colony and noticed Bill Paxton and Laurence Fishburne on the cover. It looked like a sequel to The Day After Tomorrow. I put it back down and decided to watch something else in my pile. I really couldn’t decide on anything and since I love Paxton and Fishburne, I went against my better judgment and put it in my player.

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Waxing Nostalgic Connecting The Dots: Jim Steinman, “Bad for Good”

By Jeffery X Martin

Let us now sing the praises of those who have gone previously unsung.

I didn’t get to see my sister, Winter, much when I was a kid. My dad’s daughter, she lived across the river in mysterious Ohio. I would get to see her once or twice a month. After she began driving and discovered the mysterious joys of high-school penis, it was even less than that. She was the one, however, who took me to see not only Purple Rain, but Grease 2. I’m not sure which one made more of an impact. Sure, Apollonia Kotero had amazing breasts, but I still remember all the words to “Reproduction” and “Do It for Your Country” from Grease 2.

Puberty sucks. Everything leaves its mark.

Winter’s musical taste tended towards the progressive and theatrical. I have never known anyone else, even to this day, who has owned a Marillion album. Winter did. She had every Electric Light Orchestra record. She had a love for the concept album that most certainly informed my own. There was one album in particular . . . and we’re getting to it.

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Book Review: A Christmas Story: Behind The Scenes Of A Holiday Classic

By Chelsea Spear

A Christmas Story seems like one of those films that was always part of our cultural heritage. Every Christmas, TBS broadcasts it in a 24-hour loop, phrases like “you’ll shoot your eye out” have entered the lexicon, and tchotchkes like the infamous leg lamp sell in large quantities online. Because of the film’s ubiquity, viewers can take for granted what went into getting it made. Writer Caseen Gaines (with the assistance of Jean Shepherd scholar Eugene P. Bergman and actor Wil Wheaton) lifts the curtain on the making of this beloved feature with the book A Christmas Story: Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic.

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Music Review: Howe Gelb, The Coincidentalist

By J Howell

Howe Gelb begins The Coincidentalist with a half-whispered “Welcome to the desert.” It’s as intriguing an invitation as ever, but one that—after 30-plus years and who knows how many records—is as familiar as your front door. If you’re a longtime listener of Gelb and his various permutations and projects, that is. That there are now almost as many “projects” of Gelb’s as there are albums is both a testament to Gelb’s prolific work ethic and possibly a reason why Gelb hasn’t really caught on with the public so well, in the States at least.

His status as an elder statesman of risk-taking, genre-distorting “erosion rock”—though there’s so much more to it than that—is legendary, if mostly in the sort-of ghetto of “musician’s musician.” Howe Gelb almost seems cast as a musical crazy uncle, the sort who’s fun and smart and maybe just a little bit kooky, but who the rest of the family doesn’t mention much. This is a damned shame, as Gelb’s iconoclastic voice is just plain good for the soul, and awfully damned clever to boot.

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Music Review: Buck Owens, Buck ‘Em! The Music of Buck Owens (1955-1967)

By Melissa Bratcher

A sticker on the front of the CD proudly proclaims that Buck ‘Em! The Music of Buck Owens (1955-1967) isn’t your father’s Buck Owens collection, and it certainly isn’t. The hits are here, of course, but so are alternate takes and live tracks, as well as unreleased music. For a completist (like, say, me), it’s a treasure. With voluminous, entertaining liner notes written by Buck Owens himself (culled from his upcoming autobiography, also titled Buck ‘Em) (which is pretty impressive, especially since he passed away in 2006) (which is some Tupac level of productivity right there) it’s a chronological trip through the Buck Owens catalogue, and what a catalogue it is. Buck Owens and his Buckaroos made so many records, with so many catchy songs that it amazes me that they aren’t revered in the same way as Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson.

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