Earn This

Keep on Your Mean Side (2003) – 3 stars

No Wow (2005) – 3 stars

Midnight Boom (2008) – 4.5 stars

The Kills’ first two albums are cousins of each other, each provocative, depressive, refreshingly unusual, and incomplete.   2003’s Keep on Your Mean Side and 2005’s No Wow each offer up, in their best moments, shaving-with-sandpaper grime, with singer VV (Alison Mosshart) dripping a hint of sexiness into her tortured laments.

Keep on Your Mean Side is the better album by a nose, thanks to engrossing, numbing songs like “Cat Claw “ and “Pull a U,” where Hotel fashions his snarling anti-riffs into a swaggering but brooding haze.  Elsewhere, VV makes her intentions clear with the line “I get my name stitched on your lips so you won’t get hitched” on the catchy “Hitched,” perhaps the only inviting song here.

Most of the other songs act like they don’t really care whether or not you get engaged, and while that works most of the time, it does force listeners to give the songs some time before they can really get a read.  The quality fades at the end, but you can enhance your Kills experience by replacing the meaningless “Hand” with extra track “Sugar Baby” off the deluxe edition.

If you combined the best of these two albums, you’d probably really have something, as No Wow offers up more of the same, both good and bad: they’re still gnarly, and even more dissatisfied than ever.  On the absorbing opener, VV lures you in with “You’re gonna have to step over my dead body before you walk out that door,” before she and Hotel patiently build to a hellaciously tortured climax that provides the necessary release that most bands probably couldn’t have achieved.

Elsewhere, “Love is a Deserter” and “Murder Mile” have the potential to get under your skin and mess with your thoughts if played loud enough.  VV’s lyrics are more intriguing when she’s playing around with her nightmares, when she’s ambivalent rather than dismissive.

“You got one eye as white as a bride / The other one as black as the devil / It’s alright” is more interesting than the straight-up anti-love songs like “I Hate the Way You Love.”  The band makes those songs work, but other times, they succumb to over-repetition, and the slow songs (“I Hate the Way You Love Part 2,” “Ticket Man”) lack bite.

Though those first two minimalist albums were intriguing, they tended to leave you just out of reach, leaving you to wonder whether The Kills had a slightly different, excellent album in them.  Well, Midnight Boom, released in 2008, confirmed such hopes.  Here, The Kills add vibrant splashes of color to their ever-foreboding sound and crank up the melody, thus pulling off the difficult and rewarding task of sounding dank and sexy.  The drum machines and ominous bass lines and snarling guitar are back—all sounding dirtier and more imposing than ever—but there are also new sounds cropping up everywhere, not to mention hauntingly effective lyrics from VV.

Songs feature sounds ranging from coughs to hand claps to doors closing, all thrown together intentionally carelessly on top of the crashing drums and in-and-out guitar lines.  From the hand claps of the irresistible “Sour Cherry” (“I’m the only sour cherry on your fruit stand, right?”) underpinning the clammy guitar solo that you’re just dying to hear played in a crowded club; to the winking verses of “U.R.A. Fever” (“Go ahead and have her, go ahead and leave her / You only ever had her when you were a fever”) that give way to clattering drums, synths, and guitar that explode the speakers; to the dense, electrifying jam of “M.E.X.I.C.O.C.U.” that recalls—of all people—Fugazi, the band has never been stronger.

But it’s VV herself who really takes this album to the top, adding onto her characters’ trashy tendencies and despairing outlook a measure of playfulness.  As the drugged-out, morbid-sounding tunes sigh and sulk and tease behind her, she eloquently articulates that feeling of desiring what you shouldn’t have, of wanting the bad boy or girl, of getting a thrill out of the unstable.

“Getting Down” rides an impeccable groove, but VV’s lyrics suggest a mischievous smile underneath.  Pure ear candy “Last Day of Magic” features her promising to sweep someone up as “the guts of the room,” while on “Cheap and Cheerful,” over a ferociously catchy bass line, she purrs, “I want you to be crazy ‘cause you’re stupid, baby, when you’re straight.”  Playful and knowing and risky, it’s the one line that comes closest to summing up what The Kills are now about.

Visit The Kills Myspace page at www.myspace.com/thekills

I’ll assume whoever reads this has seen The Matrix. According to IMDb, it’s not only one of the most beloved movies of this generation, but one of the most widely seen. If you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat; though Keanu Reeves’ acting is a bit stiff, and there are parts of the script I’m skeptical about, it’s one of the most exciting sci-fi movies ever released.

The key word there is “exciting.” It’s not the same as “good.” Just to clarify, I do think the Matrix is a GOOD movie. In fact, a GREAT one. But there are other things a movie can do besides get the blood pumping.

One movie it’s easy to compare The Matrix to is Dark City, which you’re much less likely to have seen. It came out one year before the Matrix and was directed by Alex Proyas. The two films tell basically the same story but in very different styles. I don’t believe that The Matrix stole anything from Dark City, as The Matrix was probably well in to production by the time Dark City came out.

Dark City is a tremendous film. As soon as I saw it the first time, I wanted to see it again. As soon as I saw it the second time, I still wanted to see it again; but in the name of saving time I decided just to skip around the DVD and visit my favorite parts. Though I don’t hold it as close to my heart as I do The Matrix, I think it holds its own and, by many measurements, is a “better” movie than The Wachowski’s film.

If film studies words like “deep focus” mean anything to you, then you’ll probably find a lot to love in Dark City. The designs seem largely based on expressionism, with sharp angles and exaggerated images filling the screen. This melds with a distinct noir-feel and strange sets that feel like they’re stuck between the 1940s and the distant future.

Even if the previous paragraph means almost nothing to you, you’ll get sucked in by the movies brooding story and haunting visuals. We can detect from the start that there’s something artificial about the world, but the way that set-up unfolds is absolutely fascinating and, at times, thrilling. Dark City is old-fashioned, and it’s CGI is about a tenth as convincing as The Matrix’s, but attentive film-making and a good story are always rewarding.

There are scenes in this film that are beautiful set-ups, and I’m not just talking about the major set pieces. Some of the most complicated, detailed shots are only on screen for a second or two and do something simple, like establish that a character is walking somewhere else or sitting in a room or something.

Dark City also digs deeper into its underlying thematic questions than The Matrix. At times when I’m watching The Matrix, I feel like the characters are spouting philosophical mumbo-jumbo. In Dark City, the characters actually talk like you’d expect someone in a fake world to talk. The revelations don’t come one after another in rapid-fire, so they feel earned.

Another treat for film fans will be how reverently Dark City references old crime and sci-fi films. My relatively untrained eye caught references to at least a half dozen films I’ve seen, all of which were integrated to the film scrupulously.

One last reason to watch the film is that it has a Roger Ebert commentary along with a commentary by the director and several members of production. I listened to most of Ebert’s commentary, and it lives to up his reputation for absolutely phenomenal insight and attention to detail.

The movie’s not without flaws. I’m not a fan of how memories and minds are depicted as simple devices. I also think Kiefer Sutherland’s performance is too exaggerated.  His weird vocal tics get old fast and distracted me as the movie was advancing the plot several times. The effects are also shockingly inferior to other high-budget films. These complaints all end up being minor; by the time the stunning, ambiguous ending rolled around, I had forgotten any sentiment besides appreciation for Dark City.

I recommend Dark City to just about anyone. I won’t guarantee you’ll enjoy it as much as The Matrix (I certianly didn’t). But if you enjoy thoughtful, quieter movies and pay close attention to it, it might compete.

Rating: two stars (out of four)

It’s not hard to see why The Departed drew such strong acclaim.  It features a well-known cast of actors, even down to the nominal supporting roles, and is directed by a Hollywood favorite, Martin Scorsese.  Its plot concerns the well-mined territory of mobsters and cops facing off against each other, and the screenplay sparkles with some witty dialogue and clever insults.  Yet something feels terribly off here: though it’s intriguing and endlessly entertaining, it doesn’t feel like much of a movie in retrospect.  Repeated viewings reveal not just plot holes but plot impossibilities; and the movie, laced with flippancy and levity, doesn’t seem to take itself seriously enough for its subject matter.

A remake of the 2002 Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs, the movie centers on the Massachusetts State Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit, headed by Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen), and its attempt to thwart a gang headed by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson).  The set-up is loaded with promise: each group has infiltrated a mole into the other’s inner circle.  Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) grew up around nothing but criminals.  Perhaps because of this, he wants to be a cop, but Queenan and his second-in-command Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) decide that his background makes him a perfect fit to be a mole inside Costello’s circle.

On the other hand, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) was raised a proper church-goer on the good side of town; perhaps because of this, he’s susceptible to Costello’s fatherly guidance during his youth.  Costello grooms Sullivan from youth to be his mole within the police unit (one of them, anyway).  The bulk of the movie follows DiCaprio and Damon trying to oust each other before they’re found.  In the meantime, Damon’s Sullivan is appointed as the internal affairs cop within the SUI, being asked to look for Costello’s mole—to find himself.  A psychiatrist named Madolyn (Vera Farmiga) gets involved with both men and further entangles the plot.

The potential for a great movie is here, but The Departed doesn’t deliver on its promises.  Its weak script is manifest in an overly flippant tone and terrible plot holes.  The film is far too slick for it’s own good, failing to achieve any level of gravitas.  It’s more concerned with telling us how funny Mark Wahlberg is, or how outrageous Nicholson’s props are, and it’s impossible to take The Departed seriously when it is so amused with itself.  It’s no coincidence that it couldn’t have taken place without present day technology (such as text messaging), because it reflects present culture’s fascination with overly-stylized, soulless, superficial products, ranging from TV shows to music to movies.  Yet everyone, from critics to the general public, mixed up the slickness and the comedy and the violence into a blender and assumed something pure came out.  Oh, look, Captain Queenan just fell hundreds of feet to his death, aren’t Martin Scorsese films just so gritty!

We live in an age when a movie can succeed with a few demonstrative moments even when it does very little thinking, because apparently audiences don’t care if a stiff breeze would collapse the plot.  Why, for example, does Sullivan make secret calls to Costello while walking through the halls of the police headquarters; and why does Costigan make secret calls to Queenan just a few feet out of range of his comrades?  How does nobody hear the numerous gunshots occurring in the showdown between Sullivan and  Costello until the former announces their whereabouts, and why was he even allowed to go after Costello alone?  I couldn’t really buy Costigan’s first defiance of Costello (leading up to his tryst with Madolyn), or the fact that the Chinese would have let Costello get away with his swindling.  But I was probably the most annoyed by the potentially fascinating street chase between Costigan and Sullivan fizzling into nothingness because the former’s phone rang to announce an incoming text—when he had just minutes before been receiving texts that caused the phone to vibrate.

Scorsese pumps the movie full of energy and color, which at times works to its advantage, as it’s endlessly watchable and full of some riveting scenes, such as the sequence leading up to Queenan’s death and the ultimate rooftop confrontation between Costigan and Sullivan.  Other times he tries too hard, as evidenced in the overly frequent use of music that likes to cut off sharply to make a point.  But it’s William Monahan’s script that truly sinks the film and makes it leave a bad taste in your mouth afterwards.

The script lays things out nicely enough at the outset, but it does take a while for the energy level to really rise, and the character development throughout leaves a lot to be desired.  Madolyn’s relationships with the two men don’t ever boil over into anything substantive, which is a shame, because, if nothing else, she represented a solid opportunity to flesh out their characters.  The film has to ascribe impotence to Sullivan to enable her to become interested in Costigan—an unlikely story, to be sure—and when she walks away from Sullivan in anger at a funeral, the film misses the obvious chance for her to deliver a devastating line.  And when Sullivan tells Costello that he’ll succeed at a task because “it involves lying, and I’m pretty good at that,” the line sounds so off that one suspects that its inclusion must only predict Madolyn later hearing it.

Elsewhere, as the film accelerates towards its climax, it is indeed intriguing to watch Sullivan try to make legitimate attempts to find the mole hidden within SUI.  But, too often, the film has to resort to its characters acting stupidly for things to fall into place.  Costello, for example, is way too naïve in his attempts to figure out Costigan’s loyalties: he foolishly assumes that if Sullivan hasn’t heard something in the office, Costigan couldn’t have given away his secrets, a particularly narrow-minded attitude especially considering that Sullivan knows that Queenan refuses to divulge any information about his undercovers.

On and on the contradictions go, particularly in one titillating but frustrating sequence wherein Costigan has his therapy session and flashes back to a meeting with Queenan and Dignam under a bridge.  You want to revel in DiCaprio’s acting and the sharpness of his words (“Two pills?  Great…why don’t you just give me a bottle of Scotch and a handgun to blow my fucking brains out!  Are we done with this psychiatry bullshit?”) but Farmiga’s struggles to find realism throw some cold water over the dream state.  And you can’t enjoy the encounter with Queenan and Dignam because of Dignam’s idiotic threat to erase the only proof remaining that Costigan’s a cop—as though you would say something like that to someone whose dangerous undercover service you wanted to continue.

DiCaprio and Damon clash in the film's best scene.

The film’s acting garnered the same effusive praise that the whole film did, but it’s uneven.  Farmiga looks awkward and out of her league as Madolyn, but a lot of the supporting characters do fine work, namely Alec Baldwin, Sheen, and Ray Winstone (as Costello’s number one).  However, two pivotal characters grate.  Wahlberg’s Dignam delivers a few amusing insults (“I’m the guy who does his job—you must be the other guy.”) but by the end, both the character and the performance remain so one-dimensional it almost becomes caricature.  There’s an irritating scene where Costigan is trying to talk to him from an airport about something constructive, and he can’t do anything but blow him off.

And Jack  Nicholson, though he looks the part, is so over-the-top that he’s wholly unbelievable.  Nearly every line and ridiculous facial expression (note the mimicking of a rat) Nicholson delivers with Oscar-seeking relish—he’s far more Nicholson, with all of his patented showiness and egotism, than Frank Costello.

Amidst all this, there is one redeeming aspect: Leonardo DiCaprio, who bumps it up a half-star or so.  Costello may be the brain of the movie, but DiCaprio is the heart.  DiCaprio’s Costigan slowly unravels over the anxiety his double life causes him, and he is so fantastic that you don’t stop to wonder how good he could have been if Nicholson (or Farmiga) had shown up.  Costigan’s tough on the outside, and he’s tougher on the inside than you might expect shortly into the movie.

DiCaprio unearths all the subtlety in a startlingly loaded, blistering performance.  In my review of The Basketball Diaries, I wrote that DiCaprio was “so good, it’s frankly a little scary,” and it’s the mark of a great actor that with each role he expands his repertoire and just gets better and better.  DiCaprio is so riveting here that he tops everything he’s done before, even his outstanding turn in Blood Diamond.  He officially grew up in 2006; no longer the impossibly young-looking teenage boy who melted girls’ hearts in Titanic or felt Robert De Niro’s wrath in This Boy’s Life, he’s now a man.

Sadly, Colin doesn’t measure up to Costigan, for various reasons.  He’s not nearly as interesting or well fleshed-out as Billy is.  Often, indeed, the motivations for his actions are unclear.  Is he, for example, truly evil, or has he just been brainwashed since a young age to protect Costello from getting caught?  The film doesn’t bother to investigate.

Damon, for his part, is effortlessly natural in his scenes with Madolyn, but too often something felt a little off with him—his mannerisms a little too histrionic, even a little feminine.  When pressed into fierceness–as in the rooftop scene–he knows what to do; but on the whole this has to rank as a disappointing turn from one of my favorite actors.

The Departed, as a whole, has lots of style and little substance—and the truly disappointing fact is that the movie doesn’t aim for any more than that.  DiCaprio brings the necessary gravitas, but most of the film doesn’t.  It’s just the kind of movie Hollywood loves these days, but in the end it’s just full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Coldplay has me concerned for the future of mankind.

It’s not that I hate the band. In fact, I quite like a lot of their music. What worries me is the way the world views Coldplay: It’s as if they’re big-time British rockers and the sound of the generation, the same way Oasis was in the 1990s and U2 was in the 1980s.

If that’s true, humanity has a lot less to look forward to than I’d like to believe. Coldplay is dreary, whiny rock with a spacey ambiance and a solemn quietude. They’re a band with niche sound, not a sweeping melodic power to steal the imagination of a generation.

I’ve had several friends talk about Coldplay shows with a reverence that seems like it should be reserved for bigger, better bands. I like Clocks and all, but does it really have the tremendous impact that a song like, say, Sunday Bloody Sunday does? No, it doesn’t. Not by a long shot.

At least the 1990s had some attitude. The kids from my generation may have been as pathetic as kids today, but at least we wanted to be tough and credible. “I was looking for some action / but all I found were cigarettes and alcohol” sang Oasis in one of the generation-defining numbers off of a generation-defining album. It has a stomp that Coldplay is terrified to even approach.

Compare that to: “Confusion never stops / closing walls and ticking clocks.” When I imagine someone singing Clocks, he’s crying in his bed. He’s sad because he doesn’t know why he’s crying in his bed, but he knows he needs to. When I imagine someone singing Cigarettes and Alcohol, he’s beating up the person singing Clocks.

I’m not saying I want a generation of thugs, but I do want a generation with some confidence. I want a generation that knows what rock and roll is. When you hold up Coldplay as the great British arena rock band of the era, it’s depressing to anyone who knows what a band like that should really sound like.

What especially bothers me is that Coldplay kept the same gray sound for three albums in a row, except the second and third of those had less energy than the first one did; The Professor has a more intricate, developed sound but it lacks the spark that Yellow had. It’s as if detached complacency and vague worrying are the band’s major themes.

Of course, there’s always that fourth album, Viva La Vida. Everybody loves Viva La Vida because Coldplay finally made an album with the slightest buoyancy to it. Please: this is what X&Y or A Rush of Blood to the Head should have sounded like. The world handed Coldplay the arena rock throne, no questions asked, but Chris Martin still wept into his pillow for two more albums.

Viva La Vida is far from a bad album, but it’s beyond overhyped. The album is not a great leap forward. It’s still Coldplay. The dreary, spacey sound has entered a bit back into the atmosphere, but it’s still too gray.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t hate Coldplay, not by a long shot. In fact, I’d even say I love a few of their songs. I’d be happy to see them live. But I accept them for what they are: A decent band with a unique sound that becomes tiresome fast.

They’re not the sound of the decade. At least I hope they’re not. If so, in about twelve years, a bunch of patsies who don’t know what British rock really sounds like are going to be having kids and entering the workforce. That’s like the first sign of the apocalypse according to the Book of Revelation, or something.

Pop rock is a huge umbrella. Elton John, Something Corporate, Kelly Clarkson, Fall Out Boy, and Jason Mraz all play pop rock. It’s pop music [melody-driven music with catchy hooks that prominently features vocals and follows expectable structures] with rock instrumentation [a lead guitarist/keyboardist and his sidekick rhythm guitarist/keyboardist riding over a bass guitar under the direction of a drummer]. Pop rock is a perfectly good term that, while it truly isn’t the largest branch of music, encompasses the a vast share of today’s radio playlists. By contrast, terms such as “alternative”, “emo”, and “indie” have been applied willy-nilly to anyone and everyone and thus stretched beyond utility.

Jupiter Sunrise plays pop rock. I gave the explanation above so that you could understand two things from such a simple classification — because a good description of any band will include labeling them with one or several genres, and it’s important to know what to do with that information. When I say Jupiter Sunrise plays pop rock, you should first recognize that they will probably sound “just like Band X” to you. They have elements in common with every other pop rock band. Odds are they’ve got 90% in common with at least one other band, if not bunches.

But this band’s name is Jupiter Sunrise, and copyright lawyers tell me that proves that this band is unique. So the second thing to realize is that they don’t play the same songs as Band X. Their songs might fit perfectly on an album by Band X and vice versa. But the bands have different members and different songs. Even having 90% in common means being 10% unique.

Without question, the most important lesson ever driven through my head was that people use music differently. Some people use music for energy while they jog; some people need a beat to bump ‘n grind to; and I study best when I’ve got the post-metal stylings of Pelican keeping me company.

In conversation, these preferences of use are often expressed as judgments of quality. Someone who never plays sports might say that Remember the Name by Fort Minor is “a bad song.” A teenage sophomore who drives her father’s mustang to high school in Orange County might say that “country is crap.” This is a misrepresentation below the level of consciousness. The truth is that the way someone uses music guides the parts of music they pay attention to.

Hip-hop does not stereotypically focus on building original melodies out of notes. (Not to say that it doesn’t happen; but notice that one common recourse is the use of sampled melodies to complement original content.) What if you like adding your voice to soaring soprano choruses on long road trips, not bobbing your body to the rhythm of a spoken beat?  Dismissing the genre as something short of real music is naive at best.  Recognizing that the strength of the genre lies in elements you instinctively ignore gives you insight into why anybody ever tunes in to that station.

So if the 10% that is unique about Jupiter Sunrise is the 10% that you are most aware of as you listen – because it is the 10% most relevant to a way in which you use music – then you will find them much more unique. If your personal focus lies elsewhere, then they might sound to you 100% like Band X, because the differences are not of a kind that naturally registers with you as you listen.

This same rule applies, of course, to whichever friend of yours (or whichever professional critic) is describing the band to you. This is the most crucial bias of which you must be aware, both in the speaker and in yourself. This puts things into perspective and explains how all of a band’s fans can seem so stupid and wrong when you hear the music for yourself.

It is the purpose of a review, or casual explanation, to draw up comparisons and contrasts and thus examine the whole of a band. But the most interesting part tends to be that unique 10%, so a lot of words are spent identifying something that a large number of people will autonomously overlook.

That is today’s lesson. Now, quickly, I present: Jupiter Sunrise – Under a Killer Blue Sky (or Heavy Things).

Mark Houlihan and Ben Karis each wrote about half of the songs on this album and each guy sings his own songs, giving Jupiter Sunrise a split personality. Mark has low songs with a gleam of hope and writes personal lyrics:

I went up to John St. Park and there I met an old lady feeding ducks. The back of her hand had been bleeding and she didn’t even know it. She told me I’d be more handsome if I smiled. So we talked about the weather, she told me about her family and she said I should meet her granddaughter, and I smiled.

Ben has happy songs with a twist of wistful and writes stories:

We’re wondering what you’re thinking, Arthur Nix. ‘Cause ever since you rode your bike into that car and were quickly whisked away by ambulance, you’ve been so pensive and quiet. Did your arm heal faster than your heart did, Arthur?

Each has his own distinct, but pop-rock-certified, vocal style. Jupiter Sunrise’s forte is in giving each verse and chorus a different feel through instrumentation and arrangement while the vocals show little variance within each song. Typically, not just the volume but the rhythm, style, or number of instruments playing will be dynamic during a verse, and the next verse will be a novel variation on the same organic idea. There’s plenty of instrumental play in intros and interludes as well. Oh, and it’s worth noting that this is a guitar band – keyboards make a minor appearance on each of two tracks and are otherwise absent.

Jupiter Sunrise laid low for years after UKBS, their only true album to date. Recently they’ve popped up for a few live shows. A Twitter acount christened in April 2009 and occasional new songs on their myspace stand as signs of new progress. However, the lineup listed on their website has two different categories for “current members” and “members who played on Under a Killer Blue Sky.” So it’s possible that they are an entirely different band now than they were five years ago when UKBS was made.

Who knows, maybe they’ll sound the same. Their currently defunct website once told me that all four band members were vegan, so maybe change is good.

Legendary musician and producer Brian Eno once said, “Every review should have, below the name of the critic, their 10 current favorite works in the medium.  That way you have some chance of seeing their prejudices.”  Well said, sir.  To that end, I proffer my ten favorite movies, not currently but all-time.  I present this list with the conditions that I know there are countless intriguing movies I have not seen—particularly any made before the last decade—and that my tastes continue to shift.

1) Mystic River

Joy Division set to cinema—the most ferociously intense, haunting movie I’ve ever seen.  Mystic River speaks, above all, to the different ways people cope with grief (just as JD did).  The characters in this movie try everything possible to lead productive lives that have been wrecked by tragedy, and though some succeed more than others, they all tell us something about what it means to be human.  As a murder mystery is investigated, questions, desires, and regrets that have lain dormant between three old friends are unearthed.

Clint Eastwood imparts a brooding, plaintive feel upon the action, understanding how atmosphere can enhance, but not overpower a story, and he culls exceptional work from his actors.  Tim Robbins’s command of a wide and rapidly shifting range of emotions is nothing short of stunning, and the incomparable Sean Penn triumphs even all of his other performances.  Yet it’s Kevin Bacon who speaks the film’s truest and most heartbreaking lines, in a late scene with Penn that might be the most emotive scene I’ve ever seen in a movie.  The best art speaks universally and personally at the same time, and in Mystic River, everything feels connected to my life, no matter what’s going on in it at the time.

2) Closer

Closer uses four spectacularly dysfunctional relationships to make profound statements about more reasonable and, hopefully, more common ones.  Asking questions most movies don’t want to touch, it makes articulate observations of the relationships among its four characters applicable to our everyday lives.  The actors and script each evince their extraordinary skill by quietly showing us that, behind the characters’ betrayals and brutal words lie a vast expanse of pain and hurt—even if they don’t want to admit they’re feeling those things.

Closer has a reputation for being depressing, but since everyone gets what he or she deserves, I see it more as a warning than a suicide pill.  It’s not really about the loneliness that touches everyone in it.  It’s about how much people who have been hurt in the past are willing to risk again, how much a failure to resist sexual attraction taints one’s character, and whether any relationship can succeed without significant flaws.

3) Good Will Hunting

An unfailingly sincere movie, and thus one that is quite easy for the sarcastic and ironic to mock.  Yet the sincerity in this movie carries along with it some implosive drama.  Matt Damon and Robin Williams give career-best performances as, respectively, a math genius whose life is going nowhere yet is frequently on edge, and the worn-down therapist who helps him connect with what’s important.  The riveting final third of the film, featuring sparkling scenes between these two as well as the other side characters, is everything it should be: provocative, intelligent, assertive, well-acted, and always very real.

4) Saving Private Ryan

The reputation of Steven Spielberg’s epic, set during World War II, precedes it, but the hype is all worth it.  The famous opening 20 minutes of war footage will leave you wishing your heart rate would subside even while your eyes are spellbound to the screen—it’s unimaginable, chaotic, and easy to follow all at once—but the movie truly becomes great with the way it handles the rest of its story with such humanity.  As eight men, led by Tom Hanks’s John Miller, search for one missing soldier, writer Robert Rodat imbues a philosophical tone upon the material, raising questions about fighting that are not easily answered.  Finding Ryan isn’t the point; the point is what Miller’s men think about it, what Miller does while executing the mission, and what Ryan says when told he can return home.

5) Children of Men

Lead actor Clive Owen has an affinity for playing characters who derive strength from destruction occurring around them (Closer, Croupier), but here it is the rest of the world that has fallen apart while he ultimately finds a measure of decency and redemption.  Showing us what would happen in a world with no children, the explosive Children of Men uses mature filmmaking to study the human condition.  In the jaw-dropping final ten minutes, as hope intermingles with despair and Owen looks towards the future, the film achieves an emotional resonance few can in their entire running time.

All the touches from the hand of director Alfonso Cuaron, who also co-wrote the screenplay, have a revelatory effect.  Even when you don’t think he’s doing something, he is.  Sean Penn himself said the movie “is arguably as well-directed a picture as there’s ever been.”  I can’t give it any higher praise than that.

6) Garden State

A quirky, unconventionally smart film written and directed by star Zach Braff, Garden State captures 21st century ennui perfectly.  Braff plays Andrew, an emotionally blank, marginally successful actor who’s drawn home for the first time in 9 years with the news of his mother’s death.  There, he meets old friends who aren’t much more productive with their lives yet still enjoy it—something he’s forgotten about—and one special new one, played by Natalie Portman.

Culling strong performances from Portman and Peter Sarsgaard, Braff constructs an often hilarious and always touching portrait of 20something loneliness.  The film has tiny flaws, but Braff deserves praise for his underlying message that being able to feel something is better than avoiding pain.  As he tells his father, “We may not be as happy as you always dreamed we would be, but for the first time let’s just allow ourselves to be whatever it is that we are…and that’ll be better.”

7) A Beautiful Mind

What’s more important in life, truth or beauty?  That question forms the heart of A Beautiful Mind, the story of the life of brilliant and troubled mathematician John Nash.  The film explores the head, heart, and psyche of its character with an excellent script given even more depth by Russell Crowe’s superb lead performance.  The film is both taut and comprehensive, avoiding becoming another rote biopic that merely sketches biographic details by letting us into Nash’s world and that of his closest friends.

Cast Away

Like Children of Men, Cast Away takes a simple but devastating hook and uses that, and its symbolic main character, to make profound and poignant statements about human nature and the world at large.  After being marooned by a plane crash, Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) faces a deserted island and little chance of ever seeing the real world and his fiancée Kelly again.  The film speaks to the ability of the human spirit to motivation itself to action even when all seems hopeless, but it is defined by its final act, after Chuck returns home to see how life has changed for everyone else while he was away.

His scene with Helen Hunt at her house is about as sad as movies can be, and he’s left to wonder whether it was even worth it to get off the island.  There is no Hollywood ending here, no reassuring words from anyone that life will all go back to normal now, no triumphant return to Kelly; but the final frames perfectly articulate, without words, the present status of the life of someone who wants desperately to find a reason to keep living.

9) American Beauty

With a pitch-perfect tone of quiet desperation, American Beauty lulls you into respect and then shocks you into moments of startling recognition.  An unbelievably consistent film, it accelerates to climactic scenes you simply can’t take your eyes off, no matter how many times you’ve seen them.

Everyone in the film, inhabiting the worst aspects of the “American dream” gone very wrong, is fighting for a way out of the straitjacket flung onto them, by their family, friends, or society.  Some succeed, some don’t, and their efforts are all put together with a masterful economy of dialogue, timing, and scene construction.  Kevin Spacey’s performance lives inside of it, but everyone, from the other actors (notably Chris Cooper) to first-time director Sam Mendes and first-time writer Alan Ball to cinematographer Conrad Hall, makes a contribution that you won’t soon forget.

10) Million Dollar Baby

This 2004 Best Picture winner demonstrates precisely the power that a great movie can have—emotionally, psychologically, visually, and viscerally.  It introduces three richly developed characters—a boxing trainer, an aspiring fighter, and a former star—given rich and human performances by the actors, and it ties it all together with a stellar script.  This is the rare film that doesn’t want to be sarcastic or glib and is unashamedly emotional—and that’s before it reaches its apex.  Loses points only because it’s not quite so re-watchable and some of these others.

What’s so remarkable is how strong it is for its first two-thirds, before taking a right-turn and morphing, seamlessly, into something entirely different for the final act.  Million Dollar Baby lingers on the minds of viewers long after it’s over because of the way these three people’s lives interact that deeply affect all of them, for better or worse, and make it impossible for them to declare their previously dead-end lives meaningless.

As an introduction to the site and our tastes in movies, we decided we would each share our current top ten favorite movies along with brief explanations about why we love them. This list is subject to change, of course, but here’s how my top ten currently stands.

1. Rudy

People scoff when I say that Rudy is my favorite movie of all time. The terms “Notre Dame fanboy” and “sentimental hogwash” are thrown around a lot. But what can I say to this? Am I expected to use logic to convince my soul not to love what it so earnestly does? Rudy, like many of the unexpected picks in my top 10, is no masterpiece in the traditional sense of technical craft or stylistic form.

The way Rudy is a masterpiece is in how strongly it strikes a personal chord. That’s something that varies from person to person, so I do not expect each one of you to call Rudy a masterpiece the way I do. Art is subjective, after all. But Rudy’s rags to riches story echoes tremendous inspiration in me. The sets are beautiful, the acting is spot-on, and the movie has a deep-seated humanity. Achieving dreams against expectations is a theme that will always be relevant.

2. The Shawshank Redemption

Like Rudy, my second favorite movie of all time is a parable about hope. Aside from a warden who at times is nagging and silly, every part of this movie is perfection in my eyes. It brings us just low enough to feel how strongly the odds are against Andy Dufresne, and then all of the harrowing set-up pays off in one of the most soaring finales in film history. Morgan Freeman is first-rate as the voice of the film, Tim Robbins is appropriately difficult to read as Andy Dufresne, and the film-making gels into a hugely satisfying experience.

More than any other movie besides maybe #4 on this list, I could go through this film scene by scene and point out details I love. This movie has moment after moment of pure power. Even the ending, which turned off critics because of how little ambiguity it leaves, is earned by this excellent film.

3. Back to the Future
Number three on my list doubles as one of the greatest comedies of all time and one of the most exciting sci-films of all time. If there is a more enjoyable two hours in film, I do not know of it. The most important element in this film — like many comedies — is the chemistry of the leads, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd. The two are hilarious and play off each other so well.

The movies tongue-in-cheek reverence to the 1980s also makes helps make Back to the Future a great movie. Instead of trying to modernize the movie and focus on making a timeless and visually advanced film — something that, ironically, would have dated the movie much more quickly — the movie sticks to depicting the flamboyance of the 1980s: skateboards, tacky vests, hair metal, and all. Even more than the edge-of-your-seat thrill and the gut-busting script, it’s this focused style that I revere in this film.

4. The Dark Knight
Too soon? Maybe. But I swore to myself that I would be honest in this list and share the movies I love the most. Though it’s barely a year old, The Dark Knight is a movie I love more than nearly any other. It’s a sprawling, exciting movie that’s part comic book, part crime saga, part character study, part smash-bang blockbuster, and all adventure.

What I love most about The Dark Knight is how it takes the struggles that comic books internalize — not just good vs. evil, but order vs. chaos — and turns them into a beautiful script; one that brims with wit and energy, but also cuts deep into some of the powerful themes that the Burton-Schumacher Batman movies could only allude to.

5. That Thing You Do!

Sometimes it’s nice when a movie sets itself a low bar, as pejorative as that sounds. Then the movie can leap over that bar with ease and style. That Thing You Do! would be an example of such a movie; it doesn’t entrench itself too deeply into complicated drama, and it keeps the comedy light and whip-smart. It’s a rags-to-riches story, but both the rags and the riches are subdued. The polished final cut is flawless, unless you consider it a flaw to lack ambition.

If it sounds like I’m selling short a movie that’s one of my favorites ever, let me clarify: I absolutely adore That Thing You Do! The characters are very human, the script has an inviting warmth and the actors all play the type of people you feel like you actually could have met in the early 1960′s. It never feels like the movie is “trying” to do anything: it just does it, and sucks you in completely.

The soul of the movie — and what sets it apart from “endearing” to “pure, classic entertainment” — is the music. The original soundtrack is marvelous pop music and it accurately emulates the sound of the time. It makes That Thing You Do! a joyous film experience every time.

6. Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark

I believe that Raiders of the Lost Ark not only reinvented the action-adventure movie but perfected it. The tone is never too gritty to suck the energy and joy out of the movie, but the action delivers the goods. It is creative, unadulterated excellence that sets up a few iconic characters but a plethora of classic moments. I can’t watch Raiders of the Lost Ark and walk away feeling anything besides complete satisfaction. Indy’s first adventure is funny, exciting, enthralling, a incredible delight that would never be topped in the series, and rarely out of the series.

7. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

The two greatest trilogy movies, which happen to be from the two greatest trilogies (though we’ll see if Toy Story joins their company in 2010) are back-to-back in my top ten. The Empire Strikes Back feels a bit like a transition movie, as it ends with a cliff-hanger and lacks an over-arching conflict and resolution.  Still, it’s easily the best Star Wars movie. It’s not as hokey as A New Hope nor as silly as Return of the Jedi.

The reason The Empire Strikes Back shines is because it puts the characters, not the plot, front and center. Each important relationship of the movie is brought in new, surprising directions. It’s fascinating seeing the characters knocked down again and again, and watching how they get back up each time. The movie avoids black and white this time around, as characters face complicated decisions and challenging revelations. Of course, the sensational set pieces and top-rate script don’t hurt.

8. Jurassic Park

JP, as my friends and I call it, has incredible suspense and visuals that still look good a decade and a half later. In fact, I think they’ll always look good: The dinosaurs are designed not just to look lifelike but to be towering and awe-inspiring.

The characters’ struggles provide a relevant warning against breaching too far with technology, but I never find myself too wrapped up in the themes of Jurassic Park. I just like going along for the ride. The heart of the movie is in its dynamic visual sequences.

Who can forget the first time the glass of water started vibrating and the T-rex stormed the Jeeps? How many things can you think of more terrifying and exhilerating than velociraptors… that can open a door! Watching this movie with the lights off and the sound turned up is one of the most engaging and thrilling movie-watching experiences I know of.

9. Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Man oh man, do I get a lot of crap for this pick. I know I have a slight tendency to overrate movies I’ve seen recently, but as far as I’m concerned, this movie could have been released in 1947 instead of 2007. Its release date does not prevent it from being, straight up, the funniest movie I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen it nearly ten times, more than any other movie released in the past decade, so it’s not just new love. Don’t agree with my analysis? Then go watch whatever inferior comedy you think is better and funnier than this one. (Sorry, this pick has been attacked so many times, I get defensive.)

Not only is the movie absolutely hilarious — maybe two or three gags fall flat, which is still a hall of fame batting average considering just how many jokes are here — but it’s a pretty good movie, too. It’s heartfelt. It knows what breakups feel like.

Perhaps the reason it feels genuine is because it is. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is semi-autobiographical for writer and star Jason Segel who was dumped while he was nude, who dated a big time star in a cheesy TV show for several years, who loves Muppets, and who dreamed of writing a Dracula puppet musical for the longest time.

10. The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects was at one point several spots higher on this list, but I can’t shy away from the fact that this mystery is one that leads nowhere. It’s a little bit frustrating that so much is left ambiguous; and yet, that’s also one reason I love it. The first time you watch it, you’re left stammering “But… but… what?”

But if you want to talk about an exquisitely crafted whodunit (rather, who-is-it), this is your winner. Its dizzying amount of twists and turns can distract you from the sheer beauty of this movie. The score is first rate and the neo-noir cinematography is haunting. The last five minutes of this movie are perhaps my five favorite minutes in the history of cinema. They say so much and so little. Go see this movie if you haven’t, and don’t read another word about it until you do.

When I take a look the artists that have left the most tremendous impact on me, most of them are pretty widely acclaimed. To name a few: Billy Joel, my first musical love, sells out arenas. Relient K, the first modern band I took seriously, has had their latest album called a ‘masterpiece’ and a ‘classic.’ The Beatles, who made me a pop music lifer, have college classes taught about them. I once saw a concert ticket headlining Reel Big Fish – Streetlight Manifesto, the two bands who convinced me ska can be great, scalped for four times its face value.

There’s one band I adore whose legacy appears to passing away fast: Eve 6.

When these three fresh-faced musicians stormed out of high school with a contract from RCA, they quickly released their self-titled debut, a thoroughly slick rock album difficult to compartmentalize: Post-grunge? Punk-pop? Alternative? Critics bestowed it with such backhanded compliments as “Eve 6 shows enormous potential.”

The follow-up, Horrorscope, broadened the band’s sound as well as their appeal. Numerous tracks crawled up the modern rock charts. Perhaps it was an ominous sign that the album’s biggest hit, Here’s to the Night — while one of the band’s best songs and an incredible ballad — is pretty different from Eve 6′s usual sound.

This brings us to their third and final pre-breakup album, It’s All in Your Head. The masses ignored it and the critics shrugged it off. But they’re all wrong. It’s All in Your Head — while not perfect — is Eve 6′s opus, a dark pop-rock masterpiece.

Listening through the album a few days ago for the first time in awhile, It’s All in Your Head sounds better then ever. It’s hard to believe the album is over a half-decade old, because it still sounds fresh. It showcases the band’s ability to construct solid pop hooks with excellent musicianship, but this time it’s edgy and colorful. There’s a nervy desperation in these songs that feels like it could explode with rage or despair or desolation at any moment, and it sometimes does.

Every piece of the album and the sound fits together. The drum-work is menacing. The guitar-work is varied, exciting, melodic, and wonderfully loud most of the time.  The flourishes of electronica evoke a hazy state of confusion that only adds to the rich, convincing sound of the album.

But the real treat is the vocal work. Max Collins emerges with one of my favorite vocal performances from any album ever. On previous albums, he’d occasionally sound too cool for school. Here, he sounds fully invested in the music. At times, his voice is stretched to its limit, but it matches the themes of the album. His voice lends the album a real honesty, as if he was really experiencing what the songs describe. Maybe he was.

It’s All In Your Head is largely about loneliness and despair. It completes a nice three-album cycle. Eve 6′s debut is mostly about growing lonely,  Horrorscope is mostly about one-night stands, and It’s All in Your Head is mostly about returning to loneliness.

I normally don’t advocate thinking of an album as simply a collection of tracks, but I have a lot I want to say about these songs, so I’ll break my rule — if for no other reason, because I don’t see many sites giving these songs the credit they deserve.

1. Without You Here – Though it sets the dark tone and lonely theme of the rest of the album (“Without you here, I feel my fear”) this is the song that most resembles Eve 6′s previous work. Like pretty much all of Horrorscope and Eve 6, it’s a straightforward guitar-bass-drums rocker, though Collins’s vocals are a bit more harried. These aren’t really marks against Without You Here, which is one of the better songs on the album.
2. Think Twice – The album really hits its stride with Think Twice. It was the album’s one semi-hit, a paranoid lament from a jealous ex-boyfriend. The song breaks down into an emotional climax with “What is it you really want? I’m tired of asking…” and features one of Eve 6′s most memorable choruses.
3. At Least We’re Dreaming – Probably the best song on the album and best song by Eve 6, period. It has playful guitar hooks, a shoutable chorus, and the best drumming in any Eve 6 song. The melody is captivating, and the song is a true gem.
4. Still Here Waiting – It opens with a searing, loud guitar riff, and descends into an anarchic cry of “I’m still here waiting for you.” More than any song, this is where Collins’s vocals hit on all cylinders.
5. Good Lives – The tune for the chorus is sugary enough that it could have been on one of Eve 6′s earlier albums, but the sound the band builds around the chorus is so melancholy it could only be a part of this album. The song is a backlash against societal expectations — very much a punk theme even though this is one of the less punkish tracks on the album.
6. Hey Montana – Hey Montana is probably my least favorite track on the album because of how so slowly and sparsely it builds compared to the rest of the album. It’s not a bad song, but it’s easily the strangest one that Eve 6 ever penned, with a distinct “cowboy” sound to it. Collins’s strained vocals are again the best part of the song.
7. Bring the Night On – The most tongue-twister song on the album, and one of the best. The brooding, minor chord progression builds into one of Eve 6′s most thrilling choruses and dark textures. The lyrics are a love song from the perspective of an insomniac and the music echoes the confusion and edginess of a sleep-deprived brain.
8. Friend of Mine – A fan favorite, Friend of Mine is the most upbeat moment of the album. It’s actually one of my least favorite tracks here. Perhaps a constructive moment was needed after seven tracks of gloom, but the repetitive guitar-work doesn’t work for me. The song feels uninspired and thrown together.
9. Girlfriend – With a slick production and clean sound, Girlfriend sounds like it doesn’t fit. And I’ll admit, my guess is the band was trying to re-create Here’s to the Night. But Girlfriend is a good song, and the theme fits. It’s an excellent break-up song — sad, but not excessively desperate — and the distinct polish fits the bill of a nice change of pace before an explosive goodbye.
10. Not Gonna Be Alone Tonight – Like Think Twice, Not Gonna Be Alone Tonight is paranoid and dark. As also suggested by Hokis, Not Gonna Be implies that substances might have played a big role in the conception of this album.
11. Hokis – It opens and closes with fragments of indiscernible voices talking. Everything in between feels a bit fragmented, too. The excellent chorus only rears its head twice, and out of nowhere both times. The heartbreaking “yeah-yeah-yeah” cries Collins makes a few times through the song don’t quite seem to fit. The lyrics are a love song about an addict, and the fact that the album title is adapted from one of the lines makes me think that drugs may have been a heavy influence on the album. Even though it’s strange and a bit incomplete, I think Hokis is one of the best songs on the album.
12. Arch Drive Goodbye – A heart-wrenching but fulfilling finale to Eve 6′s career–or at least the first leg of their careeer–Arch Drive Goodbye brings up some of the conflicting emotions of a farewell to a loved one. It ends with a upbeat wink: “Pick yourself up off the ground.” I’ve read that Eve 6 ended their farewell concert at the Gateway Arch with this song, and I get chills just thinking about what it must have been like to witness that.

It’s All In Your Head is a stunning finale for Eve 6, but it appears their breakup is actually a hiatus. The band is regrouping and working on a new album. They played a few new tracks at one of their reunion concerts I saw last fall. The songs weren’t bad but were a bit too electronic and didn’t hit me with much impact. I don’t expect them to top It’s All In Your Head, but I’m glad we’ll get to hear more from them. An album as good as this demands more.

Even if the band releases another album, It’s All In Your Head will still mark the end of an era and the final result of Eve 6 mark one. I couldn’t be more impressed with it as a farewell note, and I’m really pleased that it’s still a compelling listen six years later.

A Goofy Movie is the outcast of the 1995 Disney movies. It was not nearly as acclaimed as Toy Story nor as popular as Pocahontas. Because it was made by Disney Toon studios and is an extension of an already-established property, it wasn’t even inducted into the official animated Disney canon. Yet, this is an animated movie that deserves a cult-like following and should be passed on to the next generation the way many of the mid-90s Disney classics will be.

What really makes A Goofy Movie stand out from others of the generation is how different its primary conflict is from any movies in the official Disney canon. It’s about the delicate, tenuous relationship between an independence-seeking adolescent and a well-meaning parent. Watching the movie again a couple of days ago, I was struck how balanced and fair the movie portrayed both sides.

Though he’s the weaker and more stereotypical of the two main characters, Max is still pretty relatable and sympathetic. He’s shown as shy and unpopular but has an appealing confidence. What teenage guy hasn’t dreamed of pulling some grand, rebellious act to win the heart of a girl? I’m not entirely sure how he ever expected to pull off his stunt without getting busted, or what the specific goals were, besides impressing Roxanne — still, it’s an impressive and exciting sequence in the film.

I also empathized with Max’s embarrassment towards his father. Every teenager has felt like their dad is Goofy at some point. The movie really captures how nauseatingly difficult it can be to deal with family life when your mind is on growing up.

Though I like Max, the heart of this movie belongs to Goofy. For a character conceived as bumbling, slapstick comic relief, he’s a convincing single dad. Though he’s a bit out of touch with his son’s life, he has a strong, palpable love for Max. He’s vulnerable, confused, and willing to learn as a father.

The theme of parenting is something given justice by the movie. We see the disciplinarian style used by Pete on PJ clashing with the laid-back approach Goofy uses on Max. The movie thankfully doesn’t present a definitive correct answer. Pete isn’t shown as a bad father so much as an overbearing one. The distance Goofy gives his son isn’t villified either. Since the movie is largely about parenting, the balanced conclusion — Max maintaining his independence but making space in his life for his father — is satisfying.

Contrary to what most of the negative reviews say, A Goofy Movie has no flaws so glaring that they really hamper the movie. One aspect of the movie I consider a flaw is how unsympathetic and ridiculous the principal is. He’s not just comic relief, either: His absurdly over the top phone call with Goofy drives a lot of the conflict.

Another of the movie’s flaws is also one of its traits that makes it so lovable. Compared to the archetypal Disney classics, there’s nothing enormous at stake. A high school crush, a date to a party, and a lie to a parent don’t seem like much when life and death are on the line in The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast

But this makes for a strangely more realistic animated movie. Most of life is spent fighting little battles, many of which are small skirmishes in larger wars. Deep down, this movie is less about a wacky road trip and more about growing up, developing strong family relationships, and establishing an identity. The stakes don’t seem high on the surface, but the undercurrents of A Goofy Movie are just as powerful as the Disney animated fairy tales that everyone remembers.

Though the movie is about something important and isn’t just disposable fun, what really makes the movie tick is its tremendous comic timing. The only animated Disney movies that pack as many laughs as this are The Emperor’s New Groove and Hercules, and both of those are longer than this 78-minute film.

If you own the movie, go back and watch the scene where Roxanne’s dad first answers the door, the encounter with Big Foot, the car explosion at the end, or the visit to Lester’s Possum Park. They’re bizarre and hilarious and straight out of the imagination.

In particular, I want to commend the visit to Lester’s. The visit to the Chuck-E-Cheese ripoff shows the movie’s excellent use of sound for comic effect. The actual yodel song is comically pathetic, the little girl sitting next to Max has a great moment when she sings along in an atonal voice, and the gathering makes good use of sound and laughter to heighten Max’s embarrassment. It’s a rather impressive (and funny) few minutes.

The movie also has a visual energy and grace. The pastely colors and scenes are delightful. With a few exceptions (such as the excellent river sequence), the locales aren’t as stunning as the ones in Pocahontas or The Lion King, but the movie makes the best of what it has.

The uses of close-ups are particularly excellent, often evoking a particularly intense emotion. Consider the zoom-in on the principal as he rats out Max to Goofy, the opening dream sequence, Max hurriedly changing the map, Max approaching Roxanne during the assembly, and more.

Ultimately, it’s the details and playfulness in the movie that makes it such a delight every time I re-visit it. Every time through I notice something different. (A few details I noticed this time: the large lady in the convertible during the road trip is the vocalist in the concert, the nuns are at the monster truck show, the nerd who cheers for Stacy has a Star Trek shirt, and the ditzy-looking girl Max passes in the hall is also at Stacy’s party.) A Goofy Movie has a silly, fun tone throughout most of the movie, but has legs as a family drama, too.

Overall, A Goofy Movie is a hugely underrated animated Disney movie. Though not a part of the official Disney canon, it deserves to be remembered with the same reverence as many of those classics are. The delicate father-son relationship gives the movie humanity but the comic energy and timing keep the film afloat and enjoyable. It’s well-made, with a sharp attention to detail, and captures the hormones and battles of adolescence with a very honest, balanced eye. Give it a shot if you enjoy animated movies.

Rating: four 1/2 stars (out of five)

In their career trajectory, Weezer have rarely followed the traditional rules of rock and roll.  Their debut was an unexpected success, but the subsequent long layoff and eventual follow-up, Pinkerton, suggested they didn’t have aspirations of grandeur; yet it was hardly a typical sophomore slump, as it became, over time, their most popular album.  Lulls and comebacks have defined the band’s career, but Make Believe, their fifth studio album, is the work of a supremely confident group doing just what it wants to do.  It succeeds both by projecting a more mature emotional perspective than their earlier output and because of its sheer sonic grace and beauty.

From beginning to end, the album sounds soothing and heavenly, with a majestic scope that rivals 1980s U2.  Whereas some of Weezer’s other work can come across as abrasive upon repeated playings, Make Believe is one of the most euphonious albums I own.  Without sacrificing power, the band and producer Rick Rubin create mellifluous soundscapes that underscore the emotional purity at the center of the songs, producing a strikingly absorbing result.

And the album has the songs to match its sound, for along with eschewing their occasionally caustic sound, Weezer also leave behind their amateurishness.  The album opens with the hit single “Beverly Hills,” which announces that anthemic chants will rule the day.  Make Believe is full of grandiose choruses and guitar solos that envelop songs sung with full conviction by frontman Rivers Cuomo, with themes ranging from typically self-conscious (“Perfect Situation”) to idealistic (“This is  Such a Pity”) to shamelessly emotional (“Hold Me”).

Yet even when the chorus isn’t perfect (“Situation”), the band nevertheless sounds stronger than ever.  “Hills” is a touch bland, but “My Best Friend” could easily be a Green Day ballad, and the verses of “The Other Way,” especially on the heels of the chorus, click along in ideal rhythm.  “Pardon Me” builds to its crescendos masterfully, and the haunting album closer “Haunt You Every Day,” which wouldn’t fit on any other Weezer album, makes you want to do nothing more than close your eyes and be carried away.

Then, however, there are songs (such as “Pardon Me”) where the choruses are just about perfect, and it’s almost impossible to deny Cuomo’s sentiments.  That’s all the more true because his lyrics are as smooth as the music, conveying a refreshing gratitude to replace his prior whininess. (“I can’t tell you how the words have made me feel” wipes the floor with “What could you possibly see in little old three-chord me?”) But it’s his vocals that deserve the most acclaim.  His extended notes in “Hold Me” represent his finest moments, and he shows an equally deft touch sighing “Did I hurt you / Are you OK” on the change-of-pace effective “Freak Me Out” as he does belting out the lovely oh-oohhs of “Perfect Situation” and “Peace.”  Playing to the crowds, perhaps, but the earnestness is undeniable.

That sentiment applies to the whole album.  The band may be striving for accessibility, but in a much different way than their early power-pop did.  Their melodies have never been stronger, their songs never denser, and they’re accessible because Weezer is capable of wearing their hearts on their sleeves without coming off as overwrought.  That’s not easy to do, as albums can collapse under the weight of their good intentions, but the songwriting prowess evinced here alleviates any such concerns.  They’ve stripped away their unfortunate qualities to reveal their musical gifts, in the process indicating a willingness to continue to grow.

Make Believe isn’t quite muscular enough to be one of my all-time favorite albums, and you could argue that the songs sound a little too similar, but the exquisitely warm and soothing sound ensures that playing it lights you up.  All their talent coalesces on “Hold Me,” which has more heart than most modern bands’ entire catalogues.  They stretch all the way out here, and in the interlude, Brian Bell launches into a guitar solo that sounds timeless and old-fashioned at once, the product of a forgotten age when bands were unafraid of unabashed emotion.  When they leave their insecurities behind, Weezer are one of the few bands who can still pull that off.