Reviews ...

Reviews

Fog – Ether Teeth

Second LP from Minneapolis native

Alice Texas – Sad Days

Simmering sophomore outing from New York alt.country trio

Pulseprogramming – Tulsa For One Second

Excellent post-punk-influenced vocal electronica

Living Proof

The 10 individual CDs from 2001's box set, documenting the rise of the Dead from folky beginnings to fully-fledged masters of the cosmos

Robert Mitchum – Calypso—Is Like So…

While hanging out with calypso stars Mighty Sparrow and Lord Invader on the Trinidadian set of 1957's Fire Down Below, Mitchum hit on the idea of a cash-in album for Capitol execs eager to tap into the next big thing. Harry Belafonte aside, the craze didn't quite sweep, but old sourpuss' unlikely stab is commendable for its gusto, rum-cocktail swing and gentle innuendo (see "Tic Tic Tic"). Sinatra it ain't, but it sure beats Richard Harris.

Richie Havens

Woodstock-era LPs from "Freedom" man

Henry—Portrait Of A Serial Killer

Sleazy, nihilistic classic returns uncut

28 Days Later

Though it didn't burn up the box office during its theatrical release, Danny Boyle's jittery zombie flick is actually a far more satisfying small-screen experience. Gone is the distracting texture of large-scale digital video, and gone too is the weight of expectation (will it be better than The Beach?). Instead, the movie simply plays as it is—a brashly original post-apocalyptic B-movie.

Car Wash

Written by Joel Schumacher, Car Wash traces a day in the life of the Dee-Luxe car wash in smoggy downtown LA circa 1976. Part blaxploitation comedy and part Altman-esque ensemble drama, the huge cast includes Antonio "Huggy Bear" Fargas and, in a brief cameo, Richard Pryor. Norman Whitfield's score is a trash classic, but the story's muddled and full of dated caricatures.

Red Dragon

Anthony Hopkins completes his Hannibal Lecter set with this remake of Michael Mann's Manhunter (1986). It's more faithful to Thomas Harris' novel, but a lot less stylish, and the performances are uniformly worse: Ed Norton is merely adequate as the empathic FBI detective, while Ralph Fiennes is positively wooden as serial killer Francis Dolarhyde, and even Hopkins is below par.
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