Lightspeed Champion
Life Is Sweet! Nice to Meet You
(Domino)
Releasing: 1 February [U.K.] 16 February [U.S.]

“Marlene”, the first single from the sophomore Lightspeed Champion (of Test Icicles fame) album has a pretty snazzy trailer. They way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if everything started getting trailers. Vaccinations. Traffic violations. Filibusters. It’s a slippery slope. Nigh frictionless, dare I say.

SONG LIST
01 Dead Head Blues
02 Marlene
03 There’s Nothing Underwater
04 Intermission
05 Faculty of Fears
06 The Big Guns of Highsmith
07 Romart
08 I Don’t Want to Wake Up Alone
09 Madame Van Damme
10 Smooth Day (At the Library)
11 Intermission 2
12 Sweetheart
13 Etude Op.3 “Goodnight Michalek”
14 Middle of the Dark
15 A Bridge and a Goodbye

—Tyler Gould

Tim Burton’s highly anticipated interpretation of the Lewis Carrol/Disney classic promises to deliver with a clever mix of live action and computer animation. Disney’s animated classic entertains, but undershoots the creepy, ominous tone found in the book. We posted a teaser last month; here’s a trailer.

—Katharine Wray

The Fourth Kind, a provocative thriller set in Nome, Alaska, is the story of psychologist Dr Abigail Tyler (Milla Jovovich) and the videotaped sessions she made with traumatized patients. In the tapes, based on actual case studies, evidence of an disturbing alien abduction emerges. Spooky, no?

—Ashley Cooper

The Decemberists have teamed up with four filmmakers—Guilherme Marcondes, Julia Pott, Peter Sluszka and Santa Maria—to create an hour-long animation for their most recent album, The Hazards of Love. The band has officially released the trailer for their upcoming event, on October 19, where they will perform the entire piece synchronized with the animation, as well as an additional second set of old songs and new material. The show will take place at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus.

—Faye Rasmussen

Astro Boy is the upcoming animated 3D movie based on the popular Japanese manga series by Osamu Tezuka. Freddie Highmore of Finding Neverland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory gives voice to Astro Boy, a young robot who must save Metro City from the destructive hands of robot gladiators, led by Hamm Egg (Nathan Lane). Other vocal talents include Nicolas Cage, Kristen Bell, and Donald Sutherland. The movie is set to hit theaters October 23rd.

—Eleanore Catolico

It’s always cool to poke fun at the government, especially at their most frivolous. Pirate Radio, directed by Richard Curtis, follows the antics of eight DJs who daringly continued to play rock records in the middle of the North Atlantic, despite the angry protestations of British officials. The rock ‘n’ roll dissenters include Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh, and many others. Pirate Radio, which came out in the U.K. back in April as The Boat That Rocked, opens in the U.S. on November 13th in select theaters.

—Eleanore Catolico