Video of the Day: Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon, “History of Rap Part 2″
You think you’ve seen the best, now here’s the rest. Timberlake and Fallon just tear through 30 years of hip-hop on this callback to the medley they did a few months ago. JT was on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” to promote his new comedy with Mila Kunis, “Friends With Benefits.” My review will be here on Friday, but let’s just say it’s highly recommended, just like this amazing clip.
– Lang
Video of the Day: Beastie Boys featuring Santigold, “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win”
Spike Jonze plays with dolls that look a hell of a lot like Mike D, MCA, King Ad Rock and Santi White, complete with a cliffhanger involving plastic zombies. Spike is great, but the Beasties really need to be checking out Kyle Roberts.
– Lang
Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake talk “Friends With Benefits” and Marine Ball Antics on “Today”
The illustrious Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake discuss the new anti-rom-com this morning with Lester Holt — I mention this because, like director Will Gluck’s last film “Easy A,” “Friends With Benefits” is a helluva great time, and because mentioning Mila Kunis is an excellent source of Web traffic and generally admirable in all ways. Look for Mila Kunis on the cover of LOOKatOKC this Wednesday, and Mila Kunis will also grace the Weekend Look cover in The Oklahoman on Friday.
Mila Kunis.
– Lang
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Video of the Day: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, “The Body”
The grown members of TPOBPAH confront memories of their younger, more carefree selves in the impressively cast clip from the band’s latest disc, “Belong.”
– Lang
Movie Review: “Phase 7″
Rating: 72
Not everyone left to make their way in an apocalypse will have the necessary skills to survive, and as Edgar Wright proved with “Shaun of the Dead,” some of the last remaining humans might be complete dopes. With “Phase 7,” director Nicolas Goldbart introduces the world to Shaun’s inept Argentine cousin.
Much like “Shaun,” “Phase 7” (currently in midnight showings at AMC Quail Springs Mall) is a darkly comic trip down a familiar horror road: Survivors attempt to hold on after a deadly virus brings society to a standstill. At first, Coco (Daniel Hendler) and his extremely pregnant wife, Pipi (Jazmin Stuart), seem completely oblivious to what is happening around them, shopping and bickering at a Buenos Aires supermarket as frenzied fellow shoppers fill their carts in anticipation of the gathering storm. Even after the World Health Organization and Argentina’s authorities enforce a quarantine, Coco and Pipi just treat it like an annoyance. Coco seems more annoyed at the lack of Internet than he does at the possibility that he could die.
With their new apartment building shut down by the local authorities, Coco and Pipi get to know their neighbors a little too well. Guglieri and Lange (Carlos Bermejo and Abian Vainstein) are the first of the group to turn on their fellow tenants, attempting to kill the elderly Zanutto (Federico Luppi) to take his food and medicine. Coco winds up on friendly terms with Horacio (Yayo Guridi), a survivalist who was paranoid long before suspicion was needed, and the two mismatched knuckleheads soon become a united front, much to Pipi’s irritation.
While it is rarely as funny as “Shaun,” “Phase 7” is cut from the same cloth in one key respect: It illustrates how some people are not natural heroes no matter how the pressures of a catastrophe might hit them. When the world is running down, Coco amuses himself by sculpting his shaggy beard into a grotesque sideburn-handlebar mustache combo. If it weren’t for Horacio, who is obsessed with the notion that the pandemic is “Phase 7” of a plan to shape a “new world order,” Coco and Pipi might just argue themselves to death instead of defending themselves and planning for some kind of post-apocalyptic future.
Clearly working from a minimal budget, Goldbart restricts most of the action to the apartment complex as the tenants’ worst impulses come to the fore. As order breaks down, the body count climbs in the building thanks to an unexpected aggressor’s uncommon shotgun skills, and Goldbart spares nothing when it comes to gore and carnage. “Phase 7” does not redefine its genre, but it provides a goofy counterpoint to Stephen King’s “The Stand,” showing that the slack and incompetent could inherit the Earth.
— Lang
Blu-ray Review: “Sucker Punch”
Rating: 64
A great technician with a strong visual sense, Zack Snyder is one of Hollywood’s best maximalists and, since breaking through with his surprisingly good remake of “Dawn of the Dead,” the boyish 45-year-old built an impressive resume by attacking as many genres as he could in rapid succession. “Sucker Punch” has enough visual ideas for four movies, and it’s not too surprising that Snyder decided to cram them all into this rapid-fire fever dream about a teenager trying literally and figuratively to escape a ghastly mental ward. It is the most comic book-inspired film of 2011 that did not actually come from a comic book, an experiment that works only fitfully but is as interesting for its failures as it is for its successes.
Baby Doll (Emily Browning) is framed for her sister’s death by her evil stepfather and sent to an asylum where, as a coping mechanism, she develops layers of fantasy to sustain herself. First, she and Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and sisters Sweet Pea and Rocket (Abbie Cornish and Jena Malone) are all being exploited by the asylum in a perverse burlesque club. Second, as Baby Doll plots their escape, she falls into second-level fantasies that power her through to freedom. For these sequences, Snyder creates baroque visual conceits, including an anime-inspired duel with a giant samurai and a steampunk-infused World War I battle.
“Sucker Punch” received a critical drubbing but is nevertheless worth the time and effort put into the “Maximum Movie Mode” function on the Blu-ray, in which Snyder periodically steps into the frame to discuss how some of the more complicated shots were executed. It’s hard not to be swayed by Snyder’s enthusiasm and he is to be commended for following his creativity to an illogical extreme. Not many mainstream, big-budget directors are given such latitude. Snyder’s next film is “Man of Steel,” and Warner Bros. will undoubtedly keep a tighter reign on him for that project. With that in mind, “Sucker Punch” plays like a forum for Snyder to get crazy ideas out of his system before it’s time to toe the line for a make-or-break “Superman” reboot.
— Lang
Music Review: Washed Out, “Within and Without”
Rating: 86
In lesser hands, chillwave can veer perilously close to lifestyle music — atmospheric sound programming to match midcentury modern furnishings in high-end hotels. But much like the best work by Neon Indian, Memory Tapes and their hip-hop brethren in The Weeknd, Washed Out’s full-length debut, “Within and Without,” grafts the gauzy nostalgia of the genre onto rock-solid melodic foundations for this unrelentingly beautiful collection. Ernest Greene’s one-man laptop project builds on the comparatively lo-fi sounds of his previous EP thanks to Ben Allen’s expansive production and Greene’s infallible sense of mood and melody.
As the cover image suggests, “Within and Without” establishes a romantic through-line on its first track, “Eyes Be Closed,” with Greene layering vocals over vintage synthesizers, the mix becoming more lush and ornate as the song progresses. The approach reaches its melodic peak on “Amor Fati,” a Latin phrase used frequently in Friedrich Nietzsche’s work meaning “love of one’s fate,” in which Greene steps up the tempo even as he extols the virtues of passivity. And on “You and I,” he finds the perfect vocal foil in Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek, whose seductive voice intertwines with Greene’s in seamless harmony.
Lists of “bedroom albums” typically include classics such as Roxy Music’s “Avalon,” and “Within and Without” suggests a modern take on Bryan Ferry lothario music — that is, if Ferry had not remained in a kind of luxurious musical stasis for the past 30 years. Fittingly, Washed Out caps off the album with the nearly percussion-free “A Dedication,” a swirl of synthesized woodwinds, piano and echoing keyboards providing a fitting denouement for this hypnotic after-hours soundscape.
— Lang
Music Review: Alicia Keys, “Songs in A Minor: 10th Anniversary Collector’s Edition”
Rating: 93
A decade in the music business isn’t what it used to be — the first 10 years of the 21st century delivered less measurable stylistic change on the pop charts than any decade since the 1940s. So the arrival of a 10th anniversary collector’s edition of Alicia Keys’ disarmingly confident 2001 debut, “Songs in A Minor,” feels oddly premature, because not only has Keys’ album aged well, it is more accurate to say it has not aged at all.
Keys was 19 years old when she recorded “A Minor,” which makes the sure-footed execution of the album still so impressive. She was approaching soul music with the ears of a classicist, giving deep tracks such as “Rock Wit U” a resonant Curtis Mayfield vibe and announcing her chops on the opening “Piano & I” by playing Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” under her spoken-word introduction.
Singles such as “Fallin’” and “A Woman’s Worth” made an impression because Keys was not responding to any production or songwriting styles of her time, and while the influence of hip-hop is clearly present in “Girlfriend,” it is woven into the song’s largely organic soul foundation.
This collector’s edition includes a disc of rarities and a DVD chronicling the production of “Songs in A Minor,” an album that went on to sell 12 million copies globally and instantly cemented Keys as a force in pop and soul.
Clive Davis’ mentorship and his tireless promotion of the album meant that the stakes were set unusually high for the debut, but Keys proved to have staying power on her subsequent three studio albums. If Davis intended her as the more artistically credible inheritor of a spotlight previously occupied by stars such as Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, the decade that has passed since “Songs in A Minor” proves that Davis saw in Keys a singer who could transcend her youth and sustain a lifelong career.
— Lang
Home Video: “The Company Men”
Rating: 85
John Wells’ “The Company Men” details what happens when the Boston-based shipping conglomerate GTX misses its quarterly projections and starts handing out walking papers in an attempt to meet the stock price demanded by its shareholders. The film follows three men at distinct career stages who all met inglorious ends at the hands of hard-line CEO James Salinger (Craig T. Nelson): Chief Operating Officer Gene McCrory (Tommy Lee Jones), middle manager Phil Woodward (Chris Cooper) and hotshot sales executive Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck).
Unquestionably a film of its time, “The Company Men” deftly portrays the dangers of an employee having too much of his or her self-worth wrapped up in a job: Phil worked his way up from the docks to the white-collar office, and in his late 50s, he’s ill-suited for restarting or reinventing himself. Gene had a surplus of cash on hand but squandered too much on his materialistic wife (Patricia Kalember) and his human resources director/mistress (Maria Bello), so his golden parachute feels like fool’s gold, and Bobby is forced to sell his Porsche, sell the house he shares with his supportive spouse (Rosemarie DeWitt) and kids, and exercise some career options he never imagined.
Wells produced “ER” for 15 years on NBC before moving to cable with Showtime’s “Shameless” and HBO’s “Mildred Pierce.” He got the bum’s rush from his former network when NBC deemed Wells’ cop drama “Southland” too expensive for the return it was getting and abruptly canceled the series on the eve of its second season. But like at least some of the GTX men, Wells, who offers an interesting audio commentary on the DVD, found a way to restart, moving “Southland” to TNT and committing to networks with fewer strings attached. An understanding of that background gives “The Company Men” even more resonance. Through the film, Wells is saying there are ways to move on if the worst-case career scenario comes into play.
— Lang
Music Review: Beyonce, “4″
Rating: 83
Given that Beyonce is now singing with more power and expressive emotion than ever and taking real chances with the material on her latest album, “4,” it might be time to talk about her as a serious candidate for R&B’s pantheon. And that will still sound like sacrilege to the old guard, but “4” is a nearly flawless example of a singer achieving genuine growth by crafting the right songs at the precise moment when her voice is reaching its peak.
Just consider the opening ballad “1+1,” a truly spectacular testament to romantic devotion. “If I ain’t got something, I don’t give a damn/ ‘Cause I got it with you,” Beyonce sings, punctuating “you” with a piercing yelp as stately guitar arpeggios ratchet up the drama behind her. Produced and co-written by Terius “The-Dream” Nash, “1+1” can stand alongside the ballads from Prince’s golden age, and Beyonce simply kills on it. The first half of “4” is heavy on such ballads, but they’re firstrate, especially “I Care,” which builds to a crescendo of crashing percussion and guitars as Beyonce wails in the foreground. Unlike so many pretenders to her throne, Beyonce seems to know when to rein in her more outre vocal gymnastics and hit the notes with power instead of dancing around them. Her clarity and direct delivery on the retro rave-up “Love on Top” makes the song sound like a great “Thriller”-era artifact.
Beyonce quickens the tempo in the second half on brass band-punctuated jams such as “Countdown” and the closing “Run the World (Girls),” proving she was taking notes while listening to M.I.A.’s first two discs. Speaking of indie pop, Beyonce seems to be cribbing cues from her Of Montreal-collaborating
sister, Solange Knowles, bringing in Luke Steele of the Australian psych-pop band The Sleepy Jackson to co-write the stunning Philly soul ballad “Rather Die Young.” If only Beyonce didn’t send out for musical fast food late in the game on “4,” this would be a stone-cold classic. Tellingly, the Diane Warren-penned “I Was Here” is the only song Beyonce did not co-write, and it’s an atrociously bythe-numbers empowerment song that would make “American Idol” finalists wince a little. Beyonce is light-years beyond that level of material, a point that every other track on “4” makes abundantly clear.
- Lang
