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Conor Oberst, Natalie Merchant, Lone Bellow, Laura Marling, Excited Pup   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Monday, December 29, 2014 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

RYAN ADAMS & JENNY LEWIS played "She's Not Me" and "Just One of the Guys" for Kimmel.

CONOR OBERST played Holiday Cheer fro WFUV at the Beacon Theater.

NATALIE MERCHANT played Holiday Cheer fro WFUV at the Beacon Theater.

THE LONE BELLOW played Holiday Cheer fro WFUV at the Beacon Theater.

LAURA MARLING played Holiday Cheer fro WFUV at the Beacon Theater.

THE BANGLES: This rawkin' version of their cover of "Hazy Shade of Winter" has resurfaced on the Tube, but the linked version is better quality.  More cowbell, Debbie!

YO LA TENGO's Top 20, according to Paste.

SYLVAN ESSO's lead singer Amelia Meath discusses the duo's priestly superfans and feminism at SPIN.

CHUMPED singer Anika Pyle writes about women in Punk for Vulture.

WHAT YOUR FAVE 2014 ALBUM says about you, according to Flavorwire.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies tops the holiday weekend chart with 41.4 million, which is a resurgence, tho still about 54 million behind The Return of the King, which had a similar release calendar. Unbroken places with 31.7 million (47.3 since Christmas), with word of mouth apparently making up for less enthusiastic reviews. With Jolie making the Zamperini biopic for 65 million (instead of the originally projected 120), this should be big for Universal. Into the Woods shows with 13 million (46 million since Christmas); this one was also made for a relatively modest 50 million with big names working for small money on this prestige musical. The Mouse counts his money.  Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb drops to fouth place with 20.6 million, though that's a 20 percent jump over last weekend.  Folks seeking nonmusical family fare for the holidays have put this installment back on track for possible profit.  Annie rounds out the Top 5 with 16.6 million and 45.8 total against a 65 million budget, despite poor reviews.Below the fold, The Interview made 1.8 million (2.9 since Christmas) on about 300 screens--but it reportedly made another 15 million in the video-on-demand market, which would be good enough for No. 6 on the chart, if the charts allowed it.  Whether this strange tale can sustain more streaming revenues is anyone's guess.  The Gambler is in the seventh slot (eighth if you count The Interview)with a less-than-hot 9.3 million debut (14.3 million since Christmas); here again,not terrible against a 25 million budget.  The Imitation Game leapt up to No. 8 8 million in expanding to 747 screens, outperforming the similarly released The King's Speech.  Tim Burton's Big Eyes debuts with 3 million (4.4 since Christmas), against a mere 10 million budget.  

THE IMITATION GAME is likely the best movie I've seen since Interstellar two months ago, and perhaps longer than that. I once programmed computers in the basement where this was built, and I like WWII flicks, so I may be a bit biased.  But I will still say this biopic of the admittedly not-normal computing pioneer Alan Turing is one of the best of the year.  Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley easily deserve their Golden Globe nominations, particularly Knightley, who makes the absolute most of a smaller, less flashy role as one of Turing's collegues in the British effort to break the 159 million million possibilities of Nazis' Enigma code (which changed daily).  Mark Strong also gets some delicious moments as the head of MI6, thugh he also has the challenge of never revealing exactly what he knows about Turing. Rory Kinnear is also good as a police detective whose investigation of a robbery of Turing's home takes a surprising (to him) direction.  A slightly didactic epilogue is one of the rare flaws in a sceenplay that follows Turing through three periods in his life that turn out to be even more interrelated than they initially seem. I highly recommend this one.

BIG EYES: Tim Burton's biopic of Walter and Margaret Keane is named for the primary feature of the kitschy, sometimes crrepy paintings of children that the Keanes launched from the art world into the popular consciousness in the early-to-mid 60s.  One could immediately imagine that Burton would be drawn to this sort of pop culture artifact, and the film is evidence that he's better off paying homage to this sort of thing than when he wallows in it (See, e.g., Dark Shadows).  If anything, one of the flaws of this movie is that Burton may maintain too much of a distance from how he feels about the art itself.  I also tend to wonder how much direction actually came from Burton.  Amy Adams does her usual stellar job with the repressed and suppressed Margaret, but Christoph Waltzreally chews the scenery as Walter.  It may be that Walter was every bit as over-the-top as depicted, but as the villain in this Mad Men-esque tale, the seeming caricature tends to gloss over his contribution to the partnership (however fraudulent it was) and diminish the charm that a top con man has to possess. None of this means Waltz isn't fun to watch chew the scenery mind you -- the performances and the visuals from Burton's team are engaging and the story is briskly paced. I ended up liking it, while being slightly disappointed.

INTO THE WOODS: Right up front, know that I'm not a big fan of musicals.  Some of the classics, sure--Singin' in the Rain, West Side Story, Gigi. And I like any number of the best Disney flicks, which are de facto musicals (E.g., Beauty and the Beast).  But overall, not so much.  So when I write that I found myself fidgeting toward the end, bear that in mind.  I know Sondheim is one of the greats, and that reimagining fairy tales was way ahead of the curve in the late 80s.  But I couldn't help feeling like the music and lyrics were more interested in impressing than moving.  The performances are fine, some more than fine.  We all sort of knew Anna Kendrick could sing, but Emily Blunt and Chris Pine were surprisingly good. I in no way felt cheated and was generally entertained, but this was my least favorite movie of the holiday weekend...for what that's worth from a nonfan of musicals.

JENNIFER LAWRENCE is the top-grossing actor of 2014, according to the latest Forbes list.

CHRIS ROCK and his wife are divorcing after nearly 20 years together.

AMANDA BYNES is reportedly stable, lucid and off her meds. A holiday miracle? Or a temporary reprieve from mental illness?

ALICIA KEYS  and her husband Swizz Beatz welcomed their second child on Saturday.

SOLANGE KNOWLES is getting dogged by the taxman almost immediately after she got hitched.

DUSTIN DIAMOND, a/k/a/ Screech, was busted for an alleged stabbing.

AFGHANISTAN: The US formally ended the 13-year International Security Assistance Force combat mission in Afghanistan, marking the event with a ceremony in Kabul. Some 13K Coalition troops will remain in Afghanistan for NATO's Resolute Support training mission.

THE ISLAMIC STATE has killed 1,878 people in Syria during the past six months, the majority of them civilians, a British-based Syrian monitoring organization said on Sunday.

IRAN's army said Saturday it has deployed a suicide drone for the first time in massive ongoing military drills near the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

AN EXCITED PUPPY spots its owner.

A HIPPO that panicked while being transported by truck in Taiwan jumped from the vehicle, breaking a leg and causing confused residents to report spotting a dinosaur on the loose.

OBESE PENGUINS are waddling off the holiday weight.

AN OSTRICH on the lam takes off down a Chinese highway.

 

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