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THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE: 
... with R.E.M.! Live in Germany circa 1985, more complete than what has previously turned up on the Tube. Songs include "Feeling Gravity's Pull," "Harbourcoat," "Sitting Still," "Maps & Legends," "Fall On Me," "Green Grow The Rushes," "Driver 8," "Hyena," "So. Central Rain," CCR's "Have You Ever Seen The Rain," "Can't Get There From Here," Roger Miller's "King Of The Road," "Seven Chinese Bros.," "Auctioneer," "Old Man Kinsey," "Little America," "Pretty Persuasion, " "Theme From Two Steps Onward," Aerosmith's "Toys In The Attic," and Television's "See No Evil." Plus, previously unlinked here: "Second Guessing," "Ghost Riders In The Sky," "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville," "We Walk/ Behind Closed Doors" and "Paint It Black." CAROLINE ROSE advance streams LONER. DARLINGSIDE advance streams Extralife. MT JOY advance streams a self-titled debut. BEACH HOUSE shares "Lemon Glow." FRANK OCEAN covers "Moon River." 
MANFRED MANN'S EARTH BAND, "Blinded by the Light," Live in '75. JOHN LYDON: "I didn’t want to be a comfortable, Mick Jagger-type naughty pop star." SOFT, WET and EXPENSIVE: Chris Moon co-wrote Prince's "Soft and Wet" and is selling his rights on eBay for 490K. BRANDI CARLILE talks to NPR about radical forgiveness. FRANZ FERDINAND talks to Billboard about starting afresh after the departure of founding guitarist Nick McCarthy. 
NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases are Black Panther, which is currently scoring 97 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; Early Man, which is scoring 83 percent; and Samson, which was not advance screened. BLACK PANTHER: The hype over the degree to which Marvel's latest might be deemed historic is (imho) a distractiion from the main issue of whether it's good; I prefer good to bad, historic or not. And fortunately, this is a good film, probably in the top third of the MCU franchise. As I tend to note about the MCU, one of its charms is that it does different genres of films in superhero trappings (Winter Soldier is a paranoid politcal thriller, Ant-Man is a heist caper, etc.) Black Panther is a political film -- a bit of Afrocentric Game of Thrones machinations in T'Challa's homeland of Wakanda, with a bit of MLK Jr vs Malcolm X sprinkled on if you squint a little. Of course, there's still plenty of action, too. Director Ryan Coogler shoots the key one-on-one fights a bit more sharply than some of the other aspects of the set pieces, but it all works well. One thing the MCU has tended to do less well is its villains; Loki and maybe Nebula being the exceptions. Here, Killmonger is well-written, and well played by Michael B. Jordan. Andy Serkis gets to chew the scenery as secodnary baddie Ulysses Klaue (last seen in Age of Ultron); Danai Gurira also gets to chew as Okoye, the head of Wakanda's military. The quality supporting performances (particularly Jordan) are key because Chadwick Boseman's T'Challa worked out his vengeful feelings over his father's death in Civil War, which means he's a good guy tring to be a good guy -- and anyone who's watched a Superman movie knows the limits of that sort of role. This is also a movie that, post-Civil War, avoids the "let's destroy a city in the third act" problem... though I suspect we'll be back to that sort of thing when T'Challa returns in Infinity War. Two end credits bonus scenes. JUSTICE LEAGUE: Was Zack Snyder fired as director before his family tragedy? AMY SCHUMER married chef Chris Fischer in Los Angeles on Tuesday. JENNIFER ANISTON & JUSTIN THEROUX are separating. JEFFREY TAMBOR officially leaves Transparent. LENA DUNHAM talks about getting a hysterectomy at 31. CHARLES IN CHARGE's Alexander Polinsky accused Scott Baio of mental torture and homophobic bullying. QUENTIN TARANTINO's next film is rumored to be in trouble at Sony. 
A VETERAN rescues a pitbull, who reurns the favor. MUTANT RAT INVASION: Super rodents immune to poison flood the UK. A 4-FOOT IGUANA is busted in a Florida laundry room. WHAT'S THE REAL STORY BEHIND RABBIT DOMESTICATION? We don’t have one.
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