[14.Dec.09] :. Recently named to the Academy Awards' documentary short list, Mark Hopkins' remarkable film follows four doctors in Liberia and the Congo, in sequences at once grueling and inspiring.
[14.Dec.09] :. If the goal is to provide a biographical sketch for the casual fan and some eye candy to peruse while getting high and listening to Funhouse, this easily succeeds.
[14.Dec.09] :. PopMatters presents our 60 best albums of 2009, highlighted by a bevy of American indie rock juggernauts, the return of a hip-hop master, and a couple of the finest voices on the planet.
[14.Dec.09] :. Life on Mars: Series 2 is a prime example of how a TV series should be done. Every element, including the decision to end after 2 series, is meant to add to the show's overall brilliance.
[14.Dec.09] :. It's not always bluegrass, but it is a collection of high-quality songs performed by a band clearly versed in a range of musical styles.
[14.Dec.09] :. Where are the bold adventurousness, the whimsical verve, the breadth of imagination? Finn and Jane do their own version of a Corona commercial on the beach.
[14.Dec.09] :. The learning curve is prohibitively high for newcomers, and there’s no depth to attract the normal Madden fan, which is a shame because Madden NFL Arcade can be pretty fun if given the chance.
[14.Dec.09] :. Noble Rot have re-released three of Julian Lennon's Atlantic albums. Of these works, 1991's Help Yourself is still the most relevant, and potent of the artist's efforts.
[14.Dec.09] :. This documentary reveals Chanel as a critical figure in 20th Century culture, a visionary designer, brilliant businesswoman, and unrepentant romantic.
[14.Dec.09] :. Having produced hits for Destiny's Child, Bone Thugz-n-Harmony, and P!nk, Damon Elliott talks to PopMatters about his career and his work on that Fame remake.
[14.Dec.09] :. We don’t need Oprah Lite or Oprah 2.0, we need someone who’s a true Oprah-in-Training. And the only person who can claim that title is... Kathy Griffin.
[11.Dec.09] :. The start of Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones is indicative of the troubles to come, as the film makes awkwardly literal the fantasy spun in Alice Sebold's strange and poetic novel.
[11.Dec.09] :. The Coens might be having a good time riffing on their Job's hyperbolic cluelessness, but for almost the first time in their careers, they have twined that jabbing satire with a deeper sense of the tragic.
[11.Dec.09] :. Obvious and earnest, the film dramatizes the events leading to the 1995 Rugby World Cup tournament, during which Mandela gambled on sports as a means to unify his nation.
[11.Dec.09] :. A Serious Man is sort of a comedy -- of the dangling, irresolute variety Joel and Ethan Coen craft with impeccable wit and off-kilter editing.
[11.Dec.09] :. We have no idea where the hell electronic music is going in the next decade, but if you can't find something in the wide stew of sonics out there to get excited about, check your pulse. You're probably dead.
[11.Dec.09] :. Psychedelia has influenced so many things in 2009 -- whether the band is labeled freak-folk, psych-pop, or garage psychedelia to name a few -- that the creative approach to songwriting has influenced and been adopted by so many genres that barely any independent label has remained untouched by its reaches.
[11.Dec.09] :. It seems every year I say it, but this year it's truer than ever: this was one hell of a year for metal. If you think the Mastodon record is good (which it is) just wait 'til you hear this list’s top three.
[11.Dec.09] :. New Orleans pioneer and former Lil' Wayne mentor returns after a three-year hiatus with an exhausting set of emotionless strip club music.
[11.Dec.09] :. In costume, men retain their adult status, e.g., Batman and Superman. But their female counterparts, no matter how well suited-up for battle, are always 'girls'.
[11.Dec.09] :. High on Fire encapsulate everything metal should be: aggressive, epic, and uncompromising; its lead man's very being cries out “Seek and Destroy”.
[11.Dec.09] :. In adapting author Sapphire's difficult novel for the screen, director Lee Daniels is helping change the way spectators view African American women by deploying stereotypes and then exploding them.
[10.Dec.09] :. The film presents the sisters' struggles with their dad's seeming loss of principle and his use of courtrooms as dramatic stages to "stand up" to oppression.
[10.Dec.09] :. Part stand-up routine and part autobiography, Susie Essman offers her unfettered opinion on how to live and laugh while you're doing it.
[10.Dec.09] :. Scott McCloud's text does not make any concessions to doubters. It gives people permission to start from the presumption that comics are 'real' art, as well as 'real' literature.
[10.Dec.09] :. In 2009, well-known artists reliably produced solid albums, lesser-known artists did things that were often surprising and successful, archives were trawled by enthusiasts, old songs were excavated, polished, and compiled, and labels both large and small kept moving stubbornly on.
[10.Dec.09] :. For bluegrass fans, 2009 was a great year for music, a bad year for frugality. Though we're only listing the Top Ten, there were many excellent artists and albums worthy of a mention.
[10.Dec.09] :. At the heart of Rated R lies a common misconception: that slower songs are more emotional and more powerful, that big ballads say more about a singer's soul than, say, an R&B club hit.
[10.Dec.09] :. If this isn't the best bluegrass record of the year, it's because Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, and Chubby Wise have returned and formed the Undead Mountain Boys.
[10.Dec.09] :. There's a tension to these songs, an edge that sounds like the band could careen into anything from hardcore punk to industrial to doom metal.
[10.Dec.09] :. Kris Kringle has flesh-and-blood status and is a religious secular figure. He is Superman, Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne, Gandalf the White, James Bond, Dr. Who and James T. Kirk all rolled into one.
[10.Dec.09] :. After accidentally reuniting Rush and befriending Neil Peart, Vertical Horizon's Matt Scannell returns with his band's first album of new material in nearly six years.
[9.Dec.09] :. During the height of his career, Bill Monroe fielded a baseball team that would organize pickup games in each town in order to drum up publicity for that evening's concert.
[9.Dec.09] :. The areas from which Camera Lucida is approached are pleasingly varied, ranging from psychoanalysis to Buddhism, and figures such as Freud, Benjamin and Proust are brought into play.
[9.Dec.09] :. My indie-pop year 2009 was about young energy and autumnal melancholy, about the rush you feel when you first hear an exciting new band and the bittersweet feeling you get when your favorite band calls it quits.
[9.Dec.09] :. We may have to answer for all this concrete and rebar, Farina implies, but we've still got to live, and there are worse soundtracks for pushing forward than Atone.
[9.Dec.09] :. When Bear in Heaven focuses on songwriting instead of psychedelic synth-based mood pieces, their style really works. Too bad that only happens on maybe 60% of this album.
[9.Dec.09] :. There is something very familiar and yet distant about their brand of shoegaze that can only be described as a haunted house story told by a sleepy angel.
[9.Dec.09] :. While many rightfully credit Super Mario Bros. as the saviour of the games industry following the crash of ’83, Space Invaders influence on popular culture and on the modern shooter should not be forgotten.
[9.Dec.09] :. Just as Dostoyevsky did in critiquing a Russia that looked outward to Europe rather than inward to find its soul, Pamuk portrays an upper class that takes its cues from the West, while threatening to dislodge itself from its native culture.
[9.Dec.09] :. For the most part, it's a reality show like any other, filled with beautiful people and awkwardly-scripted plot-lines. On the other hand, it's the rare reality family that actually acts like a real one.
[8.Dec.09] :. Mastodon did a great rendition of Crack the Skye, but seemed less interested when they got to their older material. Dethklok, on the other hand, was surprisingly intense as well as fun.
[8.Dec.09] :. The surging popularity of the virtual farming game 'FarmVille' seems to imply dissatisfaction with almost every aspect of modern life -- except maybe virtual reality.
[8.Dec.09] :. The best debuts are exciting not only for what they promise, but for what they deliver, too. Think of these ten albums not as what could be, but also what already is: the best debut records of 2009.
[8.Dec.09] :. While 2009 spawned plenty of rumors that brought the Libertines, the Smiths, and the Stone Roses back together, these were the bands that actually dusted off their guitars and plugged in their amps one more time.
[8.Dec.09] :. Bell seems to be part of a growing trend of individuals who exist within the overlap of the art world and comics scene Venn diagram, a space whose very existence contests the necessity of the line in the first place.
[8.Dec.09] :. It will take you a few listens, but keep on spinning this disc and you'll soon succumb to its magic. This is another progressive step in the right direction for the dwindling R&B genre.
[8.Dec.09] :. The Ghost Hunters Academy investigators talk about the amount of misinformation there is about paranormal investigation and what an awesome season finale would look like.
[8.Dec.09] :. Imagine old Daffy Duck cartoons, with pastel songbirds circling as a cuckoo clock sounds in the background. The reality is a bit more serious.
[7.Dec.09] :. As in life, so in Men of a Certain Age, tension might relax into a corny joke or explode into a white-hot maelstrom at a careless word or an unguarded tone.
[7.Dec.09] :. Philip K. Dick’s fiction is a defense of the validity of video games because despite the fact that they are not real, his stories argue that there is still something valid in the artificial.
[7.Dec.09] :. Most shows at Bowery aren’t intimate, but Art Brut performed as though we were all at a party, and they were the ones drunk enough to stand on the kitchen table and start expounding.
[7.Dec.09] :. PopMatters kicks off our annual two-week-long best music of the year feature with the 50 best singles of 2009, highlighted by a trio of American indie rock headliners.
