Tonight, at 8/7c, I will be watching The Voice. NBC probably expects to net a fair number of 25-to-35-year-old males every week with their elaborate talent show, even if their ideal viewer is younger with longer hair. But how can any self-respecting independent music blogger be caught tuning into such a commercialized, pop-centric circus of…
Rating: 3.25 stars (out of 4) I’m not sure another movie has produced a bigger disconnect between its teased images and final product than Spring Breakers. The advance buzz promised…well, let’s not sugarcoat this—a T&A film with a bunch of attractive, heretofore-innocent girls going sexy, plus James Franco as a BAMF gangster. And it’s not…
The next time somebody complains that a supposedly ‘real’ movie takes liberties with the truth (like, say, The Social Network), I want to show them The Bling Ring. This is what happens when you don’t dramatize your movie. For all I know, the events portrayed here may well be accurate representations of the actions of…
A painfully inept film, full of dialogue and plot points that any professional writer should have rejected without hesitation Seven years ago, I felt like the only person in the world who liked Superman Returns. Over time, my feelings have softened considerably, but my childlike affection for the idea of Superman was enough to blind me…
I wanted to love the Great Gatsby adaptation so much. I tried, I really did. But when a studio moves a prominent release from prime Oscar season to the following summer, that’s usually a bad sign for the movie’s prospects. And in this case, smoke meant fire. Fitzgerald’s Great American Novel is set in the…
Album rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5) 52nd Street is The Stranger‘s jazzy little cousin, not quite so sophisticated or psychologically complex but a gem in its own right.
In the summer of 2011, I was privileged enough to see Green Day play an impromptu, intimate concert at an Orange County, California venue normally reserved for bands who have sold about 1/100th as many records as they have. I had just moved out to southern California, and the area greeted me by placing me within…
All-American Rejects (2002) – 4 stars (out of 5) Move Along (2005) – 4.5 stars When the World Comes Down (2008) – 3.5 stars Kids in the Street (2012) – 4 stars Blessed with a great name, underrated talent, and the good fortune to enter the musical world at the height of the teen emo-pop surge, The…
What’s up, dudes and dudettes? Welcome back to “Mole’s Main Event.” My series of pieces will discuss my top 10 favorite WWE matches of all time. I think it’s a good first run because it will give you guys a sense of what I value in pro wrestling, what I think is really “the good…
Only lucky people encounter bands like Elessar. You won’t hear them on the radio until orchestral indie folk music wins its fifteen minutes of widespread public appreciation. You won’t be able to see them play live in the near future if you live more than a stone’s throw from northern France. Still, consider yourself lucky:…