Second Shot at “Fame” Scores ***

Replete with raging hormones and teenage angst, the 2009 update of 1980’s Oscar-winning film “Fame” portrays the high school experience we all know too well. Emotions are constantly in high gear, as teens battle with their parents and peers over the issues that accompany the coming-of-age experience… only “Fame” attempts to capture the essence of that age whilst costuming its lead characters in tights.

A.S. Talks Race

The Associated Students Legislative Council debated a number of issues ranging from hate crimes to environmental racism at their first meeting of the year yesterday.

Armchair QB

Nike has re-sponsored the dog-torturing douchetool known as Mike Vick. I guess when confronted with the prospect of selling their souls to make a couple bucks, Nike’s motto really is “Just do it.” Jackasses.

Questions About the Constitutional Sense of Conservative Point

This column (“Obama’s Health Care Plan Sells Public a Package of Lies,” Daily Nexus, Sept. 29) is one of the most right-wing and misleading things I’ve read in the Nexus, and the author really has no idea what he is talking about.

Mountain Goats Explore New World ***

If you have trouble finding the new The Mountain Goats’ album when it is released Tuesday, you might want to try and see if it was mistakenly stocked in the Christian music department. No, the trio hasn’t transitioned into religious music, but every track of The Life of the World to Come digs deeply into the Bible for lyrical inspiration. In fact, every track of the album is titled after a specific Bible passage. Frontman John Darnielle has already dismissed any suspicions that the project might be the result of some religious awakening. While this latest collection of songs is not representative of The Mountain Goats’ fullest artistic potential, it is still a listen-worthy testament of one of today’s best songwriters.

Police Blotter

I.V. Hosts: Dancing With the Idiots

Fri., Sept. 25, 11:35 p.m. — Officers patrolling a busy Del Playa Drive couldn’t help but take notice as a flamboyant 18-year-old strutted by.

With revelry in the air, the young man had decided to entertain the masses with his groovy dance moves… from atop a moving car.

Electricity in the AIR ***

AIR: The French electronica band’s name alone conjures up elemental and celestial thoughts, and the band itself lives up to its namesake by feeding off the spacey, electronic sounds made popular in the ’70s by artists like Pink Floyd. The duo AIR started in the ’90s as one of the founding bands for what would become genre “electronic.” AIR’s music has widely influenced pop music, especially the brand of electronic pop currently so popular in European nightclubs.

Filmic Future Looks Bleak **

Remember that one movie where everyone is plugged into machines that created a large-scale simulacra of the world until a single man rises up and frees all human consciousness? Or how about the one where the cop searches through a future city hunting down androids who are attempting to kill their creator? Or the one where Bruce Willis saves the world from a technological menace? If you guessed “Matrix,” “Blade Runner” or “Live Free or Die Hard,” think again. These plotlines sorta, kinda describe Willis’s newest effort, “Surrogates.”

A Giant Black Hole **

The story of “Pandorum” is this: By the year 2174, the planet Earth has become significantly overpopulated; the only possible solution to the overcrowding is to send a large spaceship of humans to a potentially life-sustaining new planet in another galaxy. Stored in hyper-sleep for the duration of their 300-year journey, they are the last hope for the human race.

“Star” Is Not So “Bright” ***

Director Jane Campion’s “Bright Star,” the latest of this year’s Cannes selections to be given a theatrical release, is a period film based on the final years of Romantic -literarily and literally – poet John Keats. While the film has received high praise on the festival circuit for its talented actors (Ben Whitshaw and Abby Cornish) and its accurate depiction of an bygone era, and its brilliant cinematography cannot be discounted, “Bright Star” struggles to overcome its overly familiar plot, and is ultimately a better-than-average film, not a stellar one.