Bragging Rights

May 1, 2008 by

Growing old doesn't mean growing soft, necessarily: Established folk and rock talents like Neil Young and Billy Bragg have more than proved this in recent years, churning out virile political statemen...
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Blast Off

April 17, 2008 by

Maybe Phantom Planet was just biding its time, waiting to release its fourth album, Raise the Dead, until after "The OC" finally got kicked off the air and Seth Cohen faded from pop culture ubiquity. ...
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Mack the Knife

April 3, 2008 by

Brooklynite Bryan Scary and his supporting band, the Shredding Tears, achieve liftoff with their second album, Flight of the Knife, an exceedingly bizarre concept album about the heroic endeavors of A...
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Oh So Emo

March 6, 2008 by

Buried beneath the inessential trash - the 10-minute digression of sonic experimentation of the album's titular track comes to mind - is the most essential, "emotional" album that Stephen Malkmus has ...
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The Direct Approach

February 14, 2008 by

Okay, so Artsweek promised that last week's issue was our last foray into the fabulous functions of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. But, alas, space constraints led to the exclusion of ...
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Moving Pictures

February 7, 2008 by

There's a fine line between making reference to something and ripping something off. First-time director Jacob Medjuck's film, "Summerhood," manages to save itself from becoming one of those vacuous "...
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The Kids Are Alright

February 7, 2008 by

In an awards season that's been markedly ramped down due to the ongoing writers' strike, the inaugural presentation of the Virtuoso awards allowed a convergence of some of Hollywood's most noteworthy ...
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God Bless America

November 1, 2007 by

Hey America: You don't need literary credentials, an excellent command of the English language or even anything interesting to say in order to write a book these days.
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You Slay Me

October 18, 2007 by

"Do you want to be like me? Or do you want to be me?" legendary outlaw Jesse James asks the increasingly fanatic Robert Ford, a remark that foreshadows the powerful, unforgettable film's bloody titula...
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Band of Horses Rides Again

October 4, 2007 by

Sophomore albums tend to be heavily scrutinized and picked apart by critics and fans alike, often unfairly. Expectations are amplified when your band's debut album is a critically acclaimed, Pitchfork...
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