Popular Voices, Cultural Matters 2012-05-26T13:03:47Z Copyright (c) 2012, PopMatters.com ExpressionEngine tag:popmatters.com,2012:05:25 tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.158618 2012-05-25T21:00:38Z 2012-05-25T21:00:38Z Michael Barrett Myrna Loy plays Anna May Wong when Anna May Wong should have played Myrna Loy. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.158606 2012-05-25T21:00:20Z 2012-05-25T21:00:20Z Michael Barrett Style makes sincerity ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.158603 2012-05-25T21:00:15Z 2012-05-25T21:00:15Z Michael Barrett Turning Half-Japanese ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.159048 2012-05-25T21:00:00Z 2012-05-25T21:00:00Z Elena Razlogova Both Carlos Reygadas' Post Tenebras Lux and Cristian Mungiu's Beyond the Hills examine the constraints imposed by social custom, as well as its seductions. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/curious-omnivore/50.158228 2012-05-25T20:00:00Z 2012-05-25T20:00:00Z Diane Leach Even the most timid cook, possessed of the most rudimentary kitchen, will benefit from Seductions of Rice. Read it and allow yourself to be enthralled. Then get cooking. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/media-center/15.158995 2012-05-25T17:00:00Z 2012-05-25T17:00:00Z Jane Jansen Seymour The unofficial beginning of summer brings another playlist with 15 new songs by the Walkmen, Santigold, Spiritualized and more. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/short-ends-and-leader/17.158949 2012-05-25T16:00:00Z 2012-05-25T16:00:00Z Bill Gibron Yes, this is another movie where suspense is shuttled aside for actors yelling at the top of their lungs and many meaningless things going much more than 'bump' in the Ukrainian night. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.159040 2012-05-25T14:20:00Z 2012-05-25T14:20:00Z Cynthia Fuchs Ever worried and frequently quaint, Griffin is both weird and wise, a means for Men in Black 3 to bend time-travel movie rules. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/media-center/15.159042 2012-05-25T14:11:02Z 2012-05-25T14:11:02Z Cynthia Fuchs When the marines of Echo Company 2nd Battalion 8th Regiment enter Afghanistan in 2009, they're told they'll be enacting a "new" counter-insurgency strategy. Their commander names their essential... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/sound-affects/34.158737 2012-05-25T14:00:00Z 2012-05-25T14:00:00Z Jason Mendelsohn and Eric Klinger This week's Counterbalance is out of its mind on Saturday night, 1970 rolling in sight. And just on the horizon is the Stooges' sophomore effort—will it feel all right? Find out. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.159036 2012-05-25T13:45:00Z 2012-05-25T13:45:00Z Cynthia Fuchs This bit of violence suggests what's at stake for the opposite sides, for the fugitives and those who mean to bring them back: how to maintain community and also value resistance. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/notes-from-the-road/27.159030 2012-05-25T13:00:00Z 2012-05-25T13:00:00Z Jordan Cronk Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas' Post Tenebras Lux is the most visionary film of this year's Cannes festival. Meanwhile Walter Salles takes on Jack Kerouac’s cult coming-of-age novel, On the Road. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.159002 2012-05-25T12:59:00Z 2012-05-25T12:59:00Z Elena Razlogova Cannes Competition is, rather notoriously, a man's world. Women filmmakers -- as individuals and groups -- are protesting the absence of women filmmakers among Palme d'Or contestants this year. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.159032 2012-05-25T12:44:00Z 2012-05-25T12:44:00Z Cynthia Fuchs As you wait for each episode to lead where it must -- more victims dragged away screaming, more survivors wailing over particular losses, more exhortations to "Get out of here!" -- you might take a minute to reflect on what you actually see, which is not much. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158790 2012-05-25T11:25:11Z 2012-05-25T11:25:11Z Jared Bennett Despite being a remarkably new unit, Poliça performs a diverse set, complete with a handful of new songs. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/moving-pixels/35.159017 2012-05-25T11:00:00Z 2012-05-25T11:00:00Z Nick Dinicola All of the plot is laid bare in the final conversation of the game: a climactic Q&A session. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/column/19.158688 2012-05-25T07:00:25Z 2012-05-25T07:00:25Z Sean Bell With two TV shows returning Arthur Conan Doyle's creation to our screens, Sherlock Holmes has never seemed more influential. But for the good of detective fiction, it might be time to look elsewhere for our unorthodox investigators... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/feature/21.158996 2012-05-25T07:00:16Z 2012-05-25T07:00:16Z Steven Aoun This week Flash Points looks at the release of a controversial book sexually 'profiling' women, the slut shaming of Rihanna, and the poor showing of Facebook's IPO. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/feature/21.158372 2012-05-25T07:00:15Z 2012-05-25T07:00:15Z Christopher de Bellaigue In 1953, the American and British intelligence agencies launched a coup in Iran against a bedridden 72-year-old man. Muhammad Mossadegh's crimes had been to flirt with communism and to nationalize his country's oil industry, which for 40 years had been in British hands. Mossadegh must go. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158702 2012-05-25T07:00:10Z 2012-05-25T07:00:10Z David Maine This is the definitive portrait of the natural world we live in, but rarely see. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158738 2012-05-25T07:00:10Z 2012-05-25T07:00:10Z Jaya Chatterjee Farther Away celebrates the moments when we retreat from technology and the personas we cultivate through social media, when artifice is stripped, and we are left with arguments, empathy, imperfection and humility—the raw materiality of being. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158784 2012-05-25T07:00:06Z 2012-05-25T07:00:06Z Arnold Pan With the aptly titled Words and Music, Saint Etienne offers a statement of purpose for its existence more than 20 years after its founding in what’s essentially a love letter to musical fandom. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.157994 2012-05-25T07:00:05Z 2012-05-25T07:00:05Z Matthew Fiander lowFLOWs is a great rock 'n' roll story, the story of musicians pushing on in the face of heartbreak and finding new sounds, new music, and new creative heights. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158441 2012-05-25T07:00:05Z 2012-05-25T07:00:05Z Michael Curtis Nelson This Soviet-era gem about the hunt for precious stones in Siberia is more alchemy than geology. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158664 2012-05-25T07:00:05Z 2012-05-25T07:00:05Z Elisabeth Woronzoff "Mancini's music will, in its own cool way, keep reaching out, find the next generation, and the next and the next" (244). ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158706 2012-05-25T07:00:04Z 2012-05-25T07:00:04Z Enio Chiola Carina Round's third full-length is a perfectly crafted record from an amazingly talented songwriter. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/37.158539 2012-05-25T07:00:04Z 2012-05-25T07:00:04Z Steven Spoerl tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/37.158621 2012-05-25T07:00:03Z 2012-05-25T07:00:03Z Josh Langhoff tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158475 2012-05-25T07:00:03Z 2012-05-25T07:00:03Z Steve Horowitz The music from the middle of the decade shows how much things have changed in such a short time. The songs are serious, even when they do concern love, such as “So Goes Love”, about the end of a relationship. But these more adult concerns are still wrapped in pop conventions. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158239 2012-05-25T07:00:02Z 2012-05-25T07:00:02Z Steven Spoerl Noise music is supposed to be challenging. That's someting that Pumice understands and has taken to heart as Puny makes clear. Fortunately, like the best noise releases, their are breaks from the madness where everything makes sense, at least for a little while. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/37.158795 2012-05-25T07:00:02Z 2012-05-25T07:00:02Z Chris Conaton tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/37.158595 2012-05-25T07:00:01Z 2012-05-25T07:00:01Z Jedd Beaudoin tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.157753 2012-05-25T07:00:01Z 2012-05-25T07:00:01Z Liam McManus The great Robin Trower shouldn't have strayed this far. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.157770 2012-05-25T07:00:00Z 2012-05-25T07:00:00Z Matthew Asprey A new concert recording by the formidable Duke Orchestra of Paris led by Laurent Mignard collects Ellington’s French-inspired compositions, including a wealth of unheard music. The album brings into focus the triumphant late period of jazz’s greatest composer. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158964 2012-05-25T07:00:00Z 2012-05-25T07:00:00Z Chris Gaerig The basic conceit -- fling things at other things and watch them go boom -- cops the appeal of a certain mobile game phenomenon exactly. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.159008 2012-05-24T20:26:02Z 2012-05-24T20:26:02Z shathley Q I really love Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist. Not least of all for his introduction to that book, the seductively titled "When Ideas Have Sex"… ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/notes-from-the-road/27.158764 2012-05-24T17:00:00Z 2012-05-24T17:00:00Z Sachyn Mital Sony's Bloggie Sport camera may not register as a must have gadget unless you want a rugged unit that can survive a fall and can go underwater. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/media-center/15.158598 2012-05-24T16:00:00Z 2012-05-24T16:00:00Z Jessy Krupa Season Five’s American Idol saw a record number of Billboard chart appearances, with 18 contestants from the show eventually receiving some sort of record contract. What are those contestants up to, now? ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/sound-affects/34.158850 2012-05-24T15:30:54Z 2012-05-24T15:30:54Z Betsy Kim Upon the release of Hell in a Handbasket, the classic rock icon opens up about fame, faith, and his fears about the world. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/notes-from-the-road/27.158922 2012-05-24T14:00:00Z 2012-05-24T14:00:00Z Jordan Cronk Cannes rolls along with Andrew Dominik’s anticipated return, Killing Them Softly, and Holy Motors, the first film from Leo Carax in 13 years. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/media-center/15.158925 2012-05-24T13:00:00Z 2012-05-24T13:00:00Z Sachyn Mital Transcendentalism EP accompanies the triple-headline Transcendentalists European tour that just concluded. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/moving-pixels/35.158900 2012-05-24T12:00:00Z 2012-05-24T12:00:00Z Jorge Albor The damage dealers may get the accolades, but the true unsung heroes of class-based games are the support champions and their designers. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158971 2012-05-24T11:45:00Z 2012-05-24T11:45:00Z Cynthia Fuchs Code 33 follows this changing dynamic among police, press, and politicians, as detectives voice their simultaneous dedication to the job and their concerns with the process. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/feature/21.158975 2012-05-24T11:40:00Z 2012-05-24T11:40:00Z Julian Chambliss The Avengers highlights a persistent anxiety about equality in the U.S. experience. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158969 2012-05-24T11:15:00Z 2012-05-24T11:15:00Z shathley Q The cage of fame that powers social media, was most arrestingly described by Lester Bangs in his obit for John Lennon. It's hard not to see it play out again here, with Mark Millar… ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/column/19.158783 2012-05-24T07:00:25Z 2012-05-24T07:00:25Z Colin McGuire With Clear Channel recently purchasing Boston's WFNX, almost certainly with the intention of changing its format, we look at how important it is for alternative radio to exist -- and evolve. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/feature/21.157501 2012-05-24T07:00:16Z 2012-05-24T07:00:16Z Jennifer Kelly With the re-issue of all seven of Stanley Clarke’s solo discs in a career-spanning box set, we talk to the legendary bass player about his career, writing classics like "Lopsy Lu" and "School Days", the ideal balance of heart and virtuosity and the value of live performance, warts and all. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158576 2012-05-24T07:00:10Z 2012-05-24T07:00:10Z Diane Leach If you had no idea that Russian mystic / charlatan / healer / pretender Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin, aka the Mad Monk, had a wife and two daughters, you are not alone. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158894 2012-05-24T07:00:10Z 2012-05-24T07:00:10Z Terrence Butcher These films are the spiritual successors to Batman: The Animate Series. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158747 2012-05-24T07:00:06Z 2012-05-24T07:00:06Z David Amidon Killer Mike and El-P revive the spirit of early '90s Bomb Squad productions from Ice Cube and Public Enemy as faithfully and forward-thinkingly as possible. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.157508 2012-05-24T07:00:05Z 2012-05-24T07:00:05Z Sylvio Lynch Weaving together events that range from international politics to the socio-cultural development of poor American families, Lawrence Powell’s comprehensive glimpse of New Orleans' past is particularly important today. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158461 2012-05-24T07:00:05Z 2012-05-24T07:00:05Z Matthew Fiander Instead of spending so much time pulling things together, Stephens and company would have done well to break a few things down. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158806 2012-05-24T07:00:05Z 2012-05-24T07:00:05Z J.M. Suarez Over time, Clueless has only gained a sweetness that perfectly goes hand-in-hand with Heckerling’s quick witted and, at times, biting dialogue to elevate the film above a the glut of teen comedies available. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158426 2012-05-24T07:00:04Z 2012-05-24T07:00:04Z Cole Waterman A theme of deliberate confusion runs throughout Aufheben's 11 songs. Hell, even dubbing them “songs” is a bit of misnomer, as structure is largely forsaken for instrumental pastiches and all-enveloping grooves. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/37.158564 2012-05-24T07:00:04Z 2012-05-24T07:00:04Z Matthew Fiander tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/37.158660 2012-05-24T07:00:03Z 2012-05-24T07:00:03Z Brice Ezell Other People's Heartache EP, a beautiful collection of covers, could end up not just being one of the year's best mixtapes but one of the year's best recordings as well. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158138 2012-05-24T07:00:03Z 2012-05-24T07:00:03Z Steve Horowitz Thorn should know a good song when he hears it. His own works are filled with saints, sinners and the strange whose lives cannot be viewed through the prism of the sacred or the profane. The same is true of the people he sings about on the new cover record. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158787 2012-05-24T07:00:03Z 2012-05-24T07:00:03Z Steve Lepore Personable, funny, as good a singer as he is a rapper, Childish Gambino is likely here to stay, and probably only get bigger. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.157455 2012-05-24T07:00:02Z 2012-05-24T07:00:02Z Jonathan Kosakow Other than a crackling record on a turntable, there is perhaps nothing more satisfying to a jazz aficionado than the release of never-before-heard material from a great player. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/37.158522 2012-05-24T07:00:02Z 2012-05-24T07:00:02Z Jedd Beaudoin tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/review/5.158224 2012-05-24T07:00:01Z 2012-05-24T07:00:01Z Chris Colgan On their eighth album, Soulfly strikes back at critics, proving why change is both overrated and unnecessary for them. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/media-center/15.158934 2012-05-23T17:45:50Z 2012-05-23T17:45:50Z PopMatters Staff Laid Back were part of the first early wave of musicians creating electro-pop and their music has influenced countless others and been sampled often over the years. ]]>