Quick takes on the most recent additions to my iTunes libraryHe Was a Friend of Mine • Willie Nelson No big fat hooks here -- just Willie Nelson at his plaintive best in a gently strumming ballad that currently enjoys prominent soundtrack placement.
Better Now • Collective Soul Unabashedly fun and upbeat: "Oh, I'm happy as Christmas!" Ed Roland sings. Why wasn't this driving, saxophone-juiced tune a big radio hit? It would've been a welcome counterpoint to all those whiny, grating Avril Lavigne songs. At least someone had the good sense to use it in a Special K (!) commercial. The Collective can be counted on for one great pop rocker from every album -- "Shine," "December" and "Run" being past winners.
Love Song for a Vampire • Annie Lennox This was a single and featured in the 1992 Dracula soundtrack, yet I somehow never heard it until someone sent it to me on a mix tape back in the latter days of something called the cassette. It's a typically devastating Lennox performance and sounds like a late '80s holdover, but in a good way.
No More Drama • Mary J. Blige Mainly because it's based on that hypnotic and moving piano theme from The Young & the Restless, but I've liked Mary J. since "Real Love."
Tear You Apart (Radio Edit) • She Wants Revenge Sounds a bit gothy and perhaps a tad Depeche Mode, but this one is tough to pigeonhole. Think depressing, synthy '80s bands hardened by a bit of Nine Inch Nails sentiment, and you're on the trail. A former free iTunes download that's digging deeper into my brain each time I hear it.
More Shine • Si*Se Another former freebie, this one sounds a bit like Dido by way of The Cardigans, but with more strings and less kitsch. Another catchy tune I never would have heard anywhere else.
Bad Things • Jace Everett Yet another freebie, and this one delivers the line of the year thus far: "When you came in, the air went out." The hook here is "I wanna do bad things with you." It's a sleek country tune somewhat reminiscent of Chris Isaak's poppier "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing."
Genre: Bill Murray's mature stage
Director: Jim Jarmusch
DVD release: Jan. 3, 2006
Verdict: &&&It's amazing what filmmakers can do these days with a catatonic Bill Murray. At one point in Broken Flowers, he's sitting alone on the couch in his darkened apartment with a glass of champagne bubbling in front of him and Marvin Gaye playing on the stereo as he stares blankly ahead. His range in this movie varies only from total despondence to partially awake. Yet, what could simply be dull movie making becomes a profound statement on modern suburban emptiness or a sustained emotional mood that is its own reward independent of plot. But wait, there is a soupcon of plot here: Don Johnston (Murray) receives a letter from an old flame telling him he has a son who has set out on a journey to find him. Aided by his mystery-obsessed neighbor, Johnston takes his own road trip to visit his past flames and determine which one may be the mother of his child. Or is someone just playing a trick on him? With each visit, Johnston sees a few subtle clues, and there is some mild humor with the likes of Sharon Stone and her uninhibited daughter. If you don't mind ambiguous endings and expect less from this than from Lost in Translation, you just might enjoy it.
A little bonus for folks like yours truly whose last name really is Johnston: When people think he says "Don Johnson," he says, "Johnston, with a T." If I had a dollar for every time I've said that …
Genre: Good question.
Logistics: NBC, 9 p.m. Fridays, unless censored.
Verdict: &&1/2Make no mistake, I watched this show for one reason only: The nearest NBC affiliate yanked it from the schedule. I have a problem with people attempting to control what I watch for no reason other than some of the content makes them uncomfortable. In its place, they apparently aired infomercials – is there any more offensive form of programming? Fortunately, my cable provider gives me another affiliate. Setting aside The Book of Daniel's button-pushing elements and my or your or Jerry Falwell's feelings about them, the show is mildly amusing, at best. It seems to be going for a Desperate Housewives sort of darkness in its humor, and it only hits the target about half the time. Jesus appears in the long-haired, robe-clad style of those church-wall portraits for conversations with lead Aidan Quinn (Rev. Daniel Webster), who has some kind of moral dilemma going involving money and mobsters, but it is about as clear as mud in episode two. The children have their relationship issues, and Mrs. Webster (Susanna Thompson) has major mother problems. In episode two, after discovering Mom's name is on the deed to the home she thought she owned, she copes by downing vodka. The cast, overall, is strong; Thompson was positively Emmy-worthy on Once and Again. This show, on the other hand, is neither Emmy worthy nor a threat to modern civilization any more than people who view it as a malignant piece of propaganda are.// Linkage // Official NBC The Book of Daniel site
Genre: Psychological suspense
Published: Sept. 27, 2005, by Crown
Verdict: &&&1/2From the opening pages of 13 Steps Down, we know that we are about to witness the undoing of the principal characters – Mix Cellini, a man with an unhealthy interest in U.K. serial killer Reginald Christie and an obsession with a model with whom he has had several chance meetings, and his landlord, Gwendolen Chawcer, a grumpy, eccentric old woman (or "sarcastic old bitch," as Cellini pegs her) who spends her time reading the thousands of books lining the walls of her dark, cavernous old home and stores her flashlight in the refrigerator. We know that Cellini will undoubtedly kill and Chawcer is likely doomed to meet an unsavory fate, but it matters not: The pleasures of a Rendell novel lie in getting there. Her ability to convey the human mind's self-debate and rationalizations as, for example, Cellini finds ways – transparent to anyone but himself – to put himself in the path of his model crush is simply stunning. There's also a devastating look at unrequited love as Chawcer pines for the doctor who tended her father when she was a young lady. At this late stage, she takes to writing him letters and obsesses over the possibility that, all those years ago, he saw her accompany a family maid to an abortionist and deemed her classless. The use of a real-world figure, Christie, and the appearance on several occasions of a "ghost" are effective and welcomed deviations from typical Rendell plot elements, but Cellini's world unravels in classic Rendellian fashion. It's worth noting that the British master, after 41 years and more than 60 novels, apparently graced the New York Times bestseller list for the first time with this one thanks to a U.S. publicity blitz, and Entertainment Weekly named 13 Steps Down the number three fiction book of the year.// Also see // Make Death Love Me • Ruth Rendell
8 Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson Craig Kilborn left late night at the top of his game and with a killer arsenal of bits like Asexual Icon and To Blank with Love. I was cool on Ferguson at first, but his single-topic, stream-of-consciousness monologue is now the best in late night, and it kills me every time during the e-mail segment when he says, "Remember, if you want to e-mail me, it's Craig at the Internet slash Google dot Earthlink slash com."7 Invasion ABC scored the only new show out of the glut of creepy-drama upstarts that kept me coming back this season (goodbye, Threshold and Surface – nice try, though). That scene in which Muriel peers into the water and comes face to face with her dead body was the scariest thing on TV all year.6 iTunes Me in front of my iMac with 1,641 of my songs (and counting) playing through a great pair of headphones on shuffle. Thank you, Apple.5 Confessions on a Dance Floor • Madonna Easily her best since Ray of Light, this seamless electronica platter is a welcome return to form.4 Jeopardy! Like Law & Order, Jeopardy! is one of those shows I always respected but rarely watched. Then I tuned in for the Ken Jennings run (the return-until-you-get-beat rule was a brilliant move) and became permanently hooked on this unabashed celebration of knowledge.3 Blogging It really is a whole new world, and I had largely ignored it until jumping on the bandwagon about six months ago. Now it's my hobby and a whole new realm of websites that entertain me.2 TV on DVD I'm currently watching Battlestar Galactica Season 1, The Twilight Zone Season 1 ('80s version), The X-Files Season 4, NewsRadio Season 2, Seinfeld Season 3, Reno 911 Season 2, V: The Complete Series, and Once and Again Season 2. 'Nuff said. Which brings us to …1 Battlestar Galactica Season 1 DVD Maybe it’s the cylons, not just sleek machines now but human in form, as well, and especially devious. Maybe it's the silent drama of an incoming missile. Maybe it's the steely resolve of Commander Adama (brilliantly pegged by Edward James Olmos). These things and so much more make this the best show on television and, perhaps, the best television sci-fi drama ever.
Genre: Game show
Logistics: NBC, due to return
Verdict: &&&"No trivia questions, no crazy stunts," Howie Mandel says during the opening of Deal or No Deal, the latest network stab at a big-money primetime game show and, like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, a show that is already a foreign success. While half of that statement sounds like a potshot at Fear Factor, one of the most heinous crimes ever foisted on the American viewing public, the other half , "no trivia questions," only calls attention to how thin a concept Deal or No Deal really is: A contestant chooses one of 26 suitcases containing dollar amounts ranging from 1 cent to $1 million. Suitcases are opened in chunks of six, then five, etcetera, with the bank making an offer to buy back the contestant's suitcase after each round of selections. If the revealed suitcases contain a lot of low values, the bank's offer goes up. It's all a matter of chance and determining when is the right moment to stop – and that's just about it, with big money and glitzy production to prop it up. The stage full of suitcases is a nice touch, reminiscent of the '70s and '80s Treasure Hunt (a Chuck Barris production, no less), with its stage full of prize packages, one of which contained a check for a large sum. I like that there's a model on Deal to hold each and every suitcase and a constant barrage of statistics thrown up onscreen, such as, "Marla has a 60 percent chance of having $100,000 or more in her suitcase." The show's weakness is its one-dimensionality – introducing some family members on the sidelines does not qualify as mixing things up. Even Press Your Luck, the king of luck-based games, varied the pace with two question rounds. Nevertheless, Deal can be entertaining, especially when only a few cases remain and big money is still on the board. Its Dec. 19-23 run performed well enough that NBC has reportedly green-lighted further production. Since most of the few new game shows we get these days are formats that have proved to be international successes, here's hoping some American producer takes note of Australia's long-running success with $ale of the Century (it's the kind of juggernaut there that Wheel of Fortune is here), a game that's nonstop fun and, unlike Deal, weaves together a number of compelling elements.// Fun fact // NBC's last game show attempt was the unspectacular revival of Let's Make a Deal.
Genre: Sci-fi
Director: George Lucas
Released: Nov. 1, 2005
Verdict: &&&1/2It's supposed to be about Anakin Skywalker succumbing to the dark side of the Force, but Ian McDiarmid's scene-stealing makes Revenge of the Sith more about Chancellor Palpatine as evil seducer. McDiarmid owns this movie: His delivery of lines like "Not … from a Jedi" and "Master Jedi, are you threatening me?" is simply chilling. His grand presence underscores the thinness of other performances – Hayden Christensen gets the youthful petulance of his role right, but he is hopelessly out of his league when bouncing lines off McDiarmid. And, if Samuel L. Jackson and Natalie Portman have ever come across more wooden than they do here, someone tell me where (Phantom Menace doesn't count). I think some critics gave George Lucas a bit of a free ride on Sith because it's the last movie and we all really wanted to love it. I do like it, but I prefer Attack of the Clones, with its thrilling assassination attempt/chase opening and water planet scenes. One of the best things about Sith is its visual bridging to Star Wars in the final scenes, creating a sense that the story truly has come full circle. Sith's second half succeeds in creating a sustained tension as Anakin moves further down the path to transformation and the Jedi come under attack, but this is also where the movie makes its biggest plot fumble – the failure to provide a single, believable event that pushes him over the edge. That event came in the wrong movie – Attack of the Clones – when Anakin finds what the sand people have done to his mother and gets in touch with his inner dark side. // DVD notes // For a six-channel soundtrack to a Star Wars movie, there's very little happening in the surrounds. The deleted scenes, including an action sequence chopped from the opening and some political maneuvering, are worth watching but not revealing.
Quick takes on the most recent additions to my iTunes library
