Review: The Rite

Verdict: 2.5 out of 5

Exorcism flick The Rite may lack spewed pea soup, but it does have Anthony Hopkins doing his thing, and doing it well. It seems to have become fashionable to trash the bulk of his latter day output, but I'm content to feast on these morsels in anticipation of the next pleasant surprise, such as the excellent thriller Fracture. Somewhat similar in tone to The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Rite, directed by Mikael Håfström, who helmed the so-so adaptation of Stephen King's 1408, is one of those movies that easily sets itself apart from the baser majority of horror films while, at the same time, failing to ever be truly compelling. It's set in Rome with Hopkins as a veteran exorcist who's given an apprentice of sorts — an American seminary student (Colin O'Donoghue) who is coming down with a bout of atheism. The church has decreed more exorcists are needed, and the student's mentor decides a tour of duty with the exorcist will cure what ails him. The movie offers two exorcisms, the first centering on several sequences with a young girl who contorts and gets fiesty, and the second serving as a twisty curveball in the movie's closing stretch and the ultimate test of the student's doubt. Neither takes us anywhere we haven't been before, but it pushes some of the right buttons over the course of its too-long 120-plus minutes, and Hopkins, as always, is worthy of our faith.

The Rite is available now on Blu-Ray, DVD and pay per view.

Cheap Gaga

I had no doubt Lady Gaga's new album Born This Way would pop out a little early, but seeing Amazon pimp it for 99 cents since around midnight is a surprise. It's an obvious pick for deal of the day, which is sometimes as low as $1.99, but this redefines "loss leader." It's probably a smart move by Amazon, which is looking to goose its share of digital music sales, since this will likely be the biggest album release of the year, and the gimmick price will lure sales and a flurry of blog posts.

A quick look over at iTunes reveals they're having none of this madness, with the regular edition going for $11.99 and the special for $15.99, with a bonus remix of "Judas" by Thomas Gold available (hope it's better than all the other ones — sorry, Hurts and Goldfrapp).

I'm wondering: Would it be silly to buy the regular edition for 99 cents and then individually download the missing special edition tracks? Yeah, it probably would. Looks like I'll be going with the special edition on Amazon for $12.99.

MTV's Skins

I'm all for MTV giving this a go, but these are my impressions:

• It feels like taking a four-and-a-half star movie from two years ago and reenacting it with lesser actors for no good reason and with embarassing results. (In a similar vein, Let Me In takes a five-star movie from a couple years ago and reenacts it … but with excellent results.)

• The removal of a straightforward equivalent of the Maxxie character feels like pandering to American male tastes in the worst possible way.

• Watch the BBC original and forget this mess.

Guiltless Pleasures, or, 2010's top albums

Goldfrapp takes album of the year.

My top 10 scrobbled albums of 2010 per Last.fm again reveal that I am mostly out of synch with popular tastes, but who can blame me when the likes of Ke$ha and Katy Perry rule the chart? I like to go with a scrobbling recap rather than devising my own top 10 partly because I'm lazy but also because I like to consider everything current. That said, however, my favorite albums from this year are exactly where they should be on this list.

10 Christmas EP • Pet Shop Boys // Helped the boys retain their usual spot as most-played artist this year.

9 Information Society • Information Society // Had the big single back in the day but never got the full album until this year. The ballad "Repetition" is much better than I remembered.

8 Don't Stop / All Night EP • Annie // I'm throwing in the EP as well because I culled the best tracks from the two into one album of electro-pop goodness. It straddled the end of '09 and early '10, or it would have been closer to the top.

7 Kaleidoscope • Tiesto // The hardcore fans dismissed it as a pop sellout, so naturally I loved it, particulalry "I Will Be Here (Wolfgang Gartner Radio Edit)."

6 The Fame Monster • Lady GaGa // Whether you choose to view it as the second album or an EP, clever pop songs like "Bad Romance," "Monster" (how was this not a single?),  "Dance in the Dark" and "Telephone" make it essential.

5 La Roux • La Roux // La Roux put out one of the best Erasure albums of all time, and songs like "Fascination" and "As If By Magic" left me slobbering for more. To boot, it was gratifying to see that synthpop like "Bulletproof" can still be embraced by the wasteland of U.S. radio.

4 Fixin' to Thrill • Dragonette // I'm a sucker for melody and an '80s sensibility.

3 Body Talk • Robyn // Had the full album emerged earlier in the year, this sly dance album would have made a run at number one.

2 Interpreting the Masters Volume 1: A Tribute to Darryl Hall and John Oates • The Bird and the Bee // Why didn't they just use the brilliant working title, Guiltless Pleasures? That sums it up perfectly in contrast to the bloated, over-compensating title it released under. Nevertheless, this concept worked, with The Bird and the Bee's electro lounge pop marrying perfectly with H&O's pop chestnuts. "One on One," with its mesmerizing synth filigrees, is a song that seems like it ought to be left alone, frozen in the perfect moody '80s production H&O bestowed upon it, but Bird and the Bee manage to create something equally evocative in its own way. However, for me, "She's Gone" is the crowning achievement here. I do wish there had been a less predictable song choice or two — throw me a "Missed Opportunity" or "Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid" for fun. Also around the same time they gave us a soundtrack offering, a very groovy cover of "I'm Into Something Good." Now, who's up for Interpreting the Masters Volume 2: A Tribute to Depeche Mode?

1 Head First • Goldfrapp // My expectations were lowered after the folktronic nirvana of Seventh Tree, but they needn't have been. Golfrapp veered back toward the dancefloor but did so with a set of hypnotic, danceable songs that reference the synth of '80s pop in a most satisfying way; I don't think I've heard music that is so satisfyingly now and 1985 at the same time. Brilliant stompers like "Rocket," "Believer" and "Alive" glisten alongside satisfying slow-burns like "Head First" and "Hunt." More, please.

iTunes store extends song previews to 90 seconds (check your scrobbling)

You may have heard or noticed by chance, as I did, that Apple in the last few days has extended song previews from 30 to 90 (!) seconds in the iTunes store. The first time I noticed it, I did a double-take, thinking I had somehow accidentally bought the song.

One undesirable side effect that I noticed: In some cases, depending on the song length and your preferences settings in Last.fm's Audio Scrobbler, the preview may be long enough to count the preview as a full play and add it to your profile on Last.fm. I've got my Scrobbler set at 75 percent to count a song as a full play, and that was enough to add two preview plays to my profile. For the stat-obsessed, this could be quite the nagging annoyance.

So, the result was Bananarama's "Baby It's Christmas" and Double You and Friends' cover of "Do They Know It's Christmas" from Super Dance Christmas Party Vol. 3 showed up on my Last.fm history merely from listening to the iTunes samples. I deleted the scrobbles on principle (not because those song selections are anything of which one would be ashamed, of course).

On the plus side, a 90-second sample is a much better taste of a song — you're less likely to get those clueless samples that only feature the intro of a song or some middle breakdown that is unrepresentative of the whole — and an unexpectedly generous move on Apple's part.

Apocalypse

Katy Perry's Teenage Dream album has been nominated for a Grammy award for album of the year.

That's it, folks. It's all over. If she walks away with a Grammy, I'm quitting music.

If you're looking to nominate a pop album in this category, how does this trash get nominated over Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster?

Review: Teeth (2007)

Verdict: 4.0 out of 5

Teeth is one of the most twisted movies you'll ever see. Its subject matter, at once laughable and horrifying, is sufficiently scandalous that major movie chains wouldn't carry it. The story of our young heroine, a somewhat self-righteous "promise ring" wearer, is wickedly humorous as it skewers that mindset while she stumbles through a series of disastrous encounters with young men who want to get in her pants. The twist in this story is that she is in possession of a vagina dentata, a concept rooted in folk tales of many cultures, and it proves to be a weapon she can wield against masculine aggression. The movie drops none-too-subtle hints of the source of her situation as shots of a pair of enormous smokestacks near her home repeatedly appear , and her mother is dying, presumably of cancer. As fear builds in her of what she is, a mixture of dread and anticipation builds in the viewer for each successive encounter. And to the movie's credit, each tops the previous in over-the-top outrageousness. Whether or not you care about the feminist statement bubbling throughout, it's a surprisingly compelling shocker. And you will be shocked.