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Frankly, if it’s well made we could watch a feature-length documentary on the invention of the toilet brush. Not to take anything away from Jonathan Caouette’s spellbinding debut, Tarnation, a Sundance honey that reimagines what a documentary can be. Using his Macintosh, Caouette wove snapshots, Super-8 home movies, and answering-machine messages into a portrait of … Read more

Director Marc Forster’s follow-up to Monsters Ball is a tale of magic and fantasy set in turn-of-the-century London, and based on the life of James Barrie, author of Peter Pan. Johnny Depp stars as J.M. Barrie, a kind of Toys ‘R’ Us man-child who befriends Kate Winslet’s four fatherless boys and relives his lost youth, … Read more

Yarr, mateys. Here be a movie far more clever and entertaining than you’d expect from something based on a Disneyland theme park ride, produced by Armageddon’s Jerry Bruckheimer, and written by the guys who scripted Godzilla. A lot of the credit goes to Johnny Depp, who runs wild with his role as Captain Jack Sparrow, … Read more

Mike Hodges, who made one of the best British crime films of the seventies in Get Carter, reteams with his Croupier star Clive Owen for another dip in the same dark, icy pond. Like Carter, Sleep involves a hard-as-nails gangster antihero who returns to his old haunts to exact vengeance on those who killed his … Read more

American Music Club, a name chosen for its deliberately nondescript qualities, turned out to be perfect for a band that tied together so many strands of the American musical fabric—rock, folk, punk, country, even crappy lounge—into a remarkably distinctive sound that wove darkness into the shimmering light of pop choruses. The San Francisco band was … Read more

Even as on-again/off-again fans (let’s not talk about All That You Can’t Leave Behind), we’ve got a soft spot for U2. They were first ever rock band we saw live; the boys were barely out of their teens and we were simply enthralled. Twenty-some years later, it sounds like they’re channeling those youthful selves in … Read more

The odd-moment-out on Neko Case’s newest release is an outtake from an improvisational jam session she participated in at a cross-cultural arts conference. She threw it in, she says, to demonstrate the fluidity and facility of music-making, to invite listeners to join her in the fun. But any dreams of superstardom it might inspire are … Read more

Ghosts of country music past reverberate beautifully in the bluegrass tenor of Handsome Family front man Brett Sparks. But somewhere deep beneath the eerie echo of Appalachia, shadowing the Carter Family influence, tucked behind the Autoharps, banjos, and lap steels—somewhere there seems to be an inside joke between this husband-and-wife team. All those death-obsessed compositions … Read more

The family band is a great rock ’n’ roll institution, from Oasis to the Black Crowes to Hanson. There’s something fascinating about the unstudied flow of sibling vocal harmonies and stage presence. Los Lonely Boys, three brothers from west Texas, began as their dad’s backing band. First off, let’s take a moment to imagine touring … Read more

Jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux’s sophomore release, Careless Love, is earning high critical praise—and that’s no small feat for a musician who became best known on her first album, some eight years ago, as a twenty-two-year old who sounded uncannily like Billie Holiday. On her new album, you could say that Peyroux is going after something … Read more