3/3/2008
In what the media commonly refers to as "the digital age," mainstream radio seems more interested in promoting bands that are concerned more with their image rather than their songwriting craft. Between all the screamo and generic "post-grunge" bands with boring, recycled songwriting formulas, it...
2/28/2008
Orlando, Florida's Band Marino is an up and coming indie-rock band with a diverse array of influences, ranging from early indie rock, all the way to folk. Their debut album, The Sea & The Beast, is a rather impressive collection of songs with clever arrangements and quirky instrumentation....
2/27/2008
Ted Leo is kind of an anomaly; not only does he draw most of his sound from punk, a genre that has beaten itself into the ground one hundred times over, but he makes incredibly catchy songs with so much meaning. On Living with the Living, Leo offers a collection of some of his best songs to date....
2/25/2008
It is quite a feat for a band to go their entire career without making a bad album; furthermore, it's even more impressive when a band bows out after releasing quite possibly their best album. Fugazi may have done just that with the release of The Argument, which expands their incomparable sound...
2/25/2008
The latest effort from seminal punk rock band Bad Religion, New Maps of Hell, is a tad disappointing. Punk rock is a form of music, a sub-culture even, that tends to shun any kind of artistic growth, and Bad Religion seems to be fully aware of that, seeing as how they reached their creative zenith...
2/21/2008
An entertaining baseball film that suffers from some timing issues.
Based on Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel of the same name, The Natural is a baseball film starring Robert Redford. Redford portrays Roy Hobbs, a gifted but aging five-tool ballplayer looking for one more shot at the bigs. The Natural documents Hobbs's struggles and good fortunes leading up to a...
2/18/2008
The definitive neo-realist film.
In a time where most films ended with the lead character getting the girl or triumphantly walking off into the sunset, there was Bicycle Thieves; director Vittorio De Sica's neo-realist masterpiece. Bicycle Thieves is set in a post-World War II Rome, and features everyday people, rather than...
2/14/2008
An American classic with a powerful message.
Frank Capra's classic film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, is the tale of a common man standing alone against corrupt United States Senators and the political bosses pulling their proverbial strings. James Stewart stars as Jefferson Smith, a na
2/13/2008
Bill Murray is superb in this Wes Anderson classic.
Like most Wes Anderson films, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou consists of a number of scenes that leaves the audience asking themselves, "Should I be laughing or crying right now?" Anderson has a knack for creating situations such as this because the characters in his films, while emotionally...
2/12/2008
Too much useless character development and not enough action.
Note to the Strause brothers: If you're making a film entitled Aliens vs Predator, it should contain a substantial amount of Aliens fighting Predators. Honestly now, I was not expecting the second coming of Rashomon when I hesitantly purchased my ticket, but I certainly wasn't expecting an episode...
