HEAR
IT:
Motown: A Journey through Hitsville
USA, Boyz II Men
There's a big greatest-hits album
from an all-girl British pop group out this month.
Spice Girls, we hear the group is called. If they're
your kind of thing, buy the album, by all means. But
before you check out, also have a listen to another
reunion album. This one features an all-boy band (well,
they haven't been boys for a while now) and isn't a
collection of greatest hits - well, at least, not the
band's hits. Boyz II Men, one of the best-selling
R&B acts ever, has recorded songs from the Motown
catalog, including tracks made famous by the
Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and, yes, a young Michael
Jackson. If that doesn't sound perfect enough, also
know that another Jackson, American Idol's Randy
Jackson, produced the album. So there's that,
dog. |
HEAR IT AND SEE IT: The Flying
Club Cup, Beirut
You were expecting a toothless old gypsy right out of
central casting? Sorry, instead you're getting the
cherubic Zach Condon, a 21-year-old from New Mexico
who, at least with Beirut, sounds like a much older,
sadder traveling man. Fittingly for his gypsy sound,
Condon found inspiration in Eastern Europe for Beirut's
first album and wandered to France to find his muse for
The Flying Club Cup. This month, on November 12, Condon
will play in Paris at the Inrocks Festival and find out
if the French are flattered by his new music. |
SEE IT (BIG SCREEN): Love in
the
Time of Cholera
The screenplay for Gabriel Garcia Márquez's classic
novel could have been written in Spanish, but it
wasn't. So the film isn't in Spanish, either, which is
nice if you don't like reading the big screen. That the
movie stays true to Garcia Márquez's use of magical
realism is also nice, as is the fact that the studio
didn't insist on packing the film with big-name celebs.
Instead, Javier Bardem, whom you might remember from
Collateral, stars alongside Giovanna Mezzogiorno, whose
name, as you may remember from Italian class, means
"noon." Some of the cast is more recognizable. Benjamin
Bratt and Hector Elizondo have supporting roles, and
John Leguizamo has a lead part. You don't even want to
know what his name means in Italian. |
SEE IT (SMALL SCREEN): The Addams
Family: The Complete Series
Why does this simple sitcom seem so subversive today?
Is it John Astin's smarmy charm as Gomez? Morticia's
slinky dress? Uncle Fester's radical political
diatribes? No. And definitely not the last one. Maybe
it's because, whereas today's sitcoms are mostly about
dysfunctional families trying to get along in a
functional world, the Addams family was, in fact, a
completely functional family living in a world that, at
least to them, seemed totally outer-limits nutbar. Or
something. Either way, this DVD set (to be released
November 13) includes a featurette on that snappy theme
song as well as a seemingly impossible commentary track
by Thing and Cousin Itt. |
SEE IT (SMALL SCREEN): The Best
of the
Colbert Report
We're not sure how a DVD collection filled with comedy
bits from a topical show is going to hold up as time
goes on. But we are sure that Stephen Colbert and his
show's writers won't have any trouble coming up with a
tagline for the box cover. Consider the works of
staggering genius they've already come up with, like
this tagline about Colbert: "America's most described
journalist." And this opening quote from the show: "Get
ready for authenticity, voracity, and verity. Someone's
been reading a thesaurus! This is The Colbert
Report!" |
SEE IT (SMALL SCREEN): Pixar
Shorts
Father-and-son office lamps play ball, a snow-globe
snowman seeks to escape his confinement in order to woo
a cute Barbie-like doll, and an alien fails his UFO
test. Such is the wacky world of Pixar's short films.
These works date back to 1984 and include abbreviated
bits from the animation outfit's well-known franchises
The Incredibles, Cars, and Monsters, Inc. There's also
a behind-the-scenes feature on animation genius and
Pixar guru John Lasseter, who, we hear, passed his UFO
test on the first try. |