May 2014 Reviews

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader are The Skeleton Twins

These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.

SIFF Notes: The Case Against 8, The Dune, Life Feels Good, Medeas, Supermensch, The Skeleton Twins, and The Signal.

Slog: The Contradictory Couple in Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive Are Neither Alone Nor Alive (also included in my list of April posts), Factual Death, Fictional Life, and the Associations That Result When the Two Intersect, Now Playing: A Documentary About the Invention of the Teenager, Taylor Kitsch Takes a Break from Big-Budget Action Movies to Try Something Different, Matt Smith Remembers the Capitol Hill of the 1960s in My Last Year with the Nuns, Richard Linklater: From Slacker to Boyhood, Documentary Stars at This Year's SIFF Include Susan Sontag, George Takei, and Bronies, and Vincent Kartheiser Leaves Pete Campbell Behind for a Trip to Antarctica with Olivia Thirlby in Red Knot.

Line Out/Slog post count: 540 posts since 2011.  
  
Video Librarian: Off the Rez, You, Me & Them - Series 1 [2-disc 
set], Brownian Movement, Call Me Crazy - A Five Film, The Rise 
& Fall of the Clash, Suzanne Vega Live Solitude Standing [Blu].

 

Endnote: Skeleton Twins still from Roadside Attractions/Lions-
gate. Wiig and Hader previously teamed up for Adventureland. 

April 2014 Reviews

These are the reviews 
and other pieces I'm 
working on this month.

Madison Park Times: A Night with the Sun-Ups.

Seattle International Film Festival: Four blurbs for the SIFF program guide: Desert Runners, Everything We Loved, The Great Museum, and Healing. 

The Stranger SIFF Notes: Bad Hair, Clownwise, and more. 

Slog: Ambient Artist K. Leimer and the Quieter, More Electronic-Oriented Side of the Seattle Sound, Remixer Extraordinaire Todd Terje Produces His First Full-Length with a Little Help from Bryan Ferry, German Duo Boozoo Bajou Bend and Stretch Jazz (and Other Styles) into Beautiful New Shapes, I'm Ambivalent About Total Control's "Flesh War" Single (but I Dig That '80s Flashback Title), If You're Gonna Watch a Guy Drive Down a Motorway for 85 Minutes, It Might as Well Be Tom Hardy: A Preview of One-Man Motion Picture Locke, New Music and Images from Brazil's Boogarins, Late Pass: Portland Trio WL Plays with Contrasts on Their Captivating Full-Length Debut, Hold, Woods' With Light and with Love Lives Up to its Hippy-Dippy Title—and That's a Good Thing, The Strangest and Most Influential Movie Spectacular Never Made: Jodorowsky's Dune, Neneh Cherry: Alone with a Studio and a Camera, Animal Kingdom Director David Michôd Has a New Film on the Way with Robert Pattinson, and The Contradictory Couple in Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive Are Neither Alone Nor Alive. 

Line Out/Slog Music post count: 533 posts since 2011. 

Video Librarian: Brian May and Kerry Ellis - The Candlelight 
Concerts: Live at Montreux 2013 [Blu], Lou Reed: Transformer and Live at Montreux 2000 [Blu], The Punk Singer, American Masters - Billie Jean King, Arctic Hip Hop, Beyond the Music, First Comes Love, The Hooping Life, Karama Has No Walls, Mrs. Judo, Punk in Africa, Street of Dreams, Don’t Ask Me Questions - The Unsung Life of Graham Parker & the Rumour, Grand Piano.

Poster image from Sony Pictures Classics.

March 2014 Reviews

Scene from Anne Émond's Nuit #1

These are the 
reviews and 
other pieces
I'm working 
on this 
month.

Line Out: Stone Jack Jones's Third Album, Ancestor, Is a Haunting, Mesmerizing Piece of Work, Animator-Musician Chad VanGaalen Raids the Vaults to Illustrate New Vid-
eo, Guto Pryce of Super Furry Animals Forms New Band, Releases Single, and Preps Full-Length Debut, They Got Him on the Run: Alien Boy Documents the Short Life of a Portland Music Figure, The Ghetto Ghouls Have Loudness in Their DNA, Eleven Minutes of Guitar Bliss from Wyrd Visions, A Look at London Quintet Polar Bear's Latest Experimental-Jazz-Pop-Dance Conglomeration, Bluesman Gary Clark Jr. Joins Soul Singer Cody ChesnuTT for a Somewhat Unexpected Collaboration, "Last Summer" (Featuring Kevin Shields) Exemplifies Composer Brian Reitzell's Maximal Approach to Minimalism, Director Bill Morrison and Composer Bill Frisell Remember The Great Flood of 1927, Switzerland's Confusingly Named Klaus Johann Grobe Is a Duo (and Their New Song Is Terrific), Helium's Unstoppable Mary Timony Has a New Band and a New Video (Co-Starring Ian Svenonius), East Coast Guitar Bands Woods and the War on Drugs Make New Fans by Re- fining Their Strengths, and Ass-Kicking Atlanta Trio the Coat- hangers Win Over the Seattle Crowd at Friday's Sold-Out Show.  
Line Out/Slog Music post count: 521 posts since 2011.  

Seattle Film Blog: Vic + Flo Saw a Bear and Enemy.

Video Librarian: 400 Miles to Freedom, Danchi No Yume - Dreams of the Projects, From Nothing, Something, Melvin & Jean - An American Story, Muscle Shoals, Romeo Romeo, Running for Jim, Sis-
ter, Young Lakota, Girl Rising, Miss You Can Do It, Nuit #1, and Pussy Riot - A Punk Prayer.

Image from K Films Amerique/Adopt Films.  

February 2014 Reviews

Cover of Habibi's self-titled debut (1/28 release date)

These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.

Amazon: Going forward, I'll be providing database support, but no further DVD or theatrical reviews, since Amazon won't be offering exclusive editorial content anymore (I've been writing music and movie reviews since 2000). Once I'm caught up with current assignments, I plan to pursue other opportunities.

Still playing (or yet to open): August - Osage County, The Hunger Games - Catching Fire, The Invisible Woman, and The Past.

Line Out: Habibi Bring "The Moves" to Their New Single, Rock and Booze: Suicide Squeeze Issues a Compilation and a Namesake Beer, Stone Jack Jones' Spare, Spectral "Red Red Rose," September Girls Make a Fine Racket on Their First Full-Length, Cursing the Sea, Beverly Is Not a One-Woman Band, Quilt Channels Traffic on "Tie Up the Tides," The Notwist's New Single, "Kong," May Be Their Most Upbeat Song to Date, The Perfect Song for Your Next Seance: Portland Two-Piece the Body's "Hail to Thee, Everlasting Pain," The Blank Project, Neneh Cherry's First Solo Album in 18 Years, Is Her Best Yet, Get "Caught Up" with Detroit Combo Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas in Their Latest Video, The Mind Massage of Doug Tut-
tle's Debut, Elysian Fields Use "Cat" Ploy to Reel in Listener, Aus-
tin's Tele Novella Are on the Move with a Single and a Record.

Still playing: Jobriath A.D. Also, some of my words about Tough Age's "Sea of White" appear in their latest press release: "With its echoey vocals, fuzz guitar, rubbery bass, and thundering drums, it plays like a cross between Rocket from the Crypt's 'On a Rope' and Loop's 'Straight to Your Heart,' as incongruous as that combination may seem—and the louder you turn it up, the better it sounds."

Seattle Film Blog: long-delayed review of The Great Beauty. 

Video Librarian: Free China - The Courage to Believe,  
Harvest, My So-Called Enemy, Orange Witness, Tokyo 
Waka, How I Live Now, Mr. Nobody, and Bomb It 2.

Habibi cover image from Burger Records. 

January 2014 Reviews

Tahar Rahim, Bérénice Bejo, and Ali Mosaffa in The Past

These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.






Amazon Theatricals: Ralph Fiennes' The Invisible Woman 

(with Fiennes and Felicity Jones) and Asghar Farhadi's The Past.

Line Out: After Two Years in Berlin, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks Unveil Wig Out at Jagbags, Morgan Delt's Kaleidoscopic "Obstacle Eyes," That Time Morvern Callar Author Alan Warner Wrote About Can's 1971 Album Tago Mago, What Happens When the Black Lips Get the Blues (and Break Out the Leather and Chains), Protomartyr's "Scum, Rise!" Revives the Scuzzy Noise Rock of the Reagan Era, Angel Olsen Revs Up Her Sound on New Record, Web of Sunsets Herald Their Debut on End of Time Records with a Lovely New Song, Ben Chasny and Donovan Quinn Celebrate Old Drunk America on First Full-Length, Forget the Title: Boston Trio Quilt's "Tired & Buttered" Is One of Their Finest Songs to Date, The Coathangers Throw Things, Deface Record Covers, Release a New Song, and Hit the Road, Neneh Cherry's Genre-Defying "Everything," and Jobriath A.D.

Video Librarian: Old Dogs & New Tricks - Complete Seasons 1 & 2, Cliff Richard - Still Reelin’ and A-Rockin': Live in Sydney [Blu-ray], George Thorogood & the Destroyers: Live at Montreux [Blu-ray], Consumed - Identity and Anxiety, Follow Me Down - Portraits of Louisiana Prison Musicians, The Lower 9 - A Story of  Home, They Think I'm Chinese, Sample This - The Birth of Hip-Hop, Sister (with Léa Seydoux), and Tiger Eyes.

The Past image from Sony Pictures Classics.  

December 2013 Reviews

These are the 
reviews and 
other pieces 
I'm working 
on this month.













Amazon Theatrical: August: Osage County. 

Line Out: No Chance of Smog: Mick Turner and Bill Callahan at
Neumos, Mutual Benefit's Debut Album, Love's Crushing Dia-
mond, Is a Low-Key Gem, The New La Luz Video for "Big Big Blood" Has Creepy Fun with Horror Movies, Step into the Static with TV Ghost, Seattle Musicians and Authors Pay Tribute to Lou Reed and Sub Pop on Two Separate Evenings, Jack Name Takes His Glam Rock to Outer Space, Bay Area Trio Terry Malts Go Minimalist in the Stark, Black & White Video for "I Was Not There," Mutual Ben-
efit's New Video Takes Inspiration from Danish Bad-News Classic The Celebration, Magik Markers Invite You to Surrender to the Fantasy, The Gourds: A Film, a Song, and a Few Thoughts, Burger Records' (Mostly) Painless Holiday Mix, One-Man Band Morgan Delt Brings Undiluted Psychedelia to His Debut, Nasimiyu Murum-
ba Lights Up the "Dark," and Spartan Poster of the Week Contender.

Video Librarian: Black Label Society - Unblackened [Blu], It's
a Girl, Trash Dance, James Morrison - The Wizard from Oz, Anti-
gone 34 [three-disc set], Move Me Brightly, Springsteen & I [Blu], Buying Sex, All the Labor, Dream Theater - Live at Luna Park.
 
Image from Other Music Recording Co.

November 2013 Reviews

Adèle Exarchopoulos in Blue Is the Warmest Color

These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.

Amazon Theatricals: Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is the Warm-
est Color (with Léa Seydoux), Alex Gibney's The Armstrong Lie, and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (with Jennifer Lawrence).

Still playing (or yet to open): Blue Jasmine, The Mortal Instru-
ments - City of Bones, The Way, Way Back, and We're the Millers.
 
Line Out: Doc Pomus: Writer, Raconteur, Humanitarian, The Great Cate (Le Bon) Abandons Wales, Embraces the U.S., and Falls in with a Bunch of Yanks, Morgan Delt's Album Preview, "Beneath the Black and Purple," Will Take Your Mind for a Ride, Wot's Up with Mike Donovan's Debut, A Transformative Night at the North-
west Film Forum in Tribute to Loud Reed, Quilt Gets Back to Na-
ture in "Arctic Shark" Video, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me Is a Heartbreaker, Hear Mmoss's David Tuttle Get His Neil Young On, Barbara Trentalange's "Same Illusion" Is a Moody Thing (with a Haunting Video), Limiñanas' Irresistible Costa Blanca, and RSD's Black Friday Includes T-Shirts, Too, Like This Big Star Model. 

Seattle Film Blog: Claire Denis's Bastards.

Video Librarian: The Mortal Instruments - City of Bones, On the Riviera, Alfredo's Fire, The Genius of Marian, Here One Day, The 
Hill, More Than Honey, The Price of Sand, Caro Emerald in Con-
cert [Blu-ray], Drug War [Blu-ray], Stuck in Love, and Kindred -
The Embraced: The Complete Vampire Collection [three-disc set].

Blue Is the Warmest Color image from IFC.