Providence Phoenix - thePhoenix.com

America’s Best New Bands 2009

PHOENIX STAFF — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:03:42 GMT

Our picks for the best new artist from each state in the union
Our picks for the best new artist from each state in the union

Beyond the big top

BILL RODRIGUEZ — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:50:49 GMT

Cirque du Soliel's acrobatic theater
Calling Cirque du Soleil a circus is like calling Cinderella's splendiferous carriage a pumpkin. They're starting their 25th anniversary tour at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence (July 2 through 5) and, compared to Cirque, an ordinary circus appears vegetative, indeed.

SADNESS AND AFFIRMATION Alegría runs the gamut of emotions.

Calling Cirque du Soleil a circus is like calling Cinderella's splendiferous carriage a pumpkin. They're starting their 25th anniversary tour at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence (July 2 through 5) and, compared to Cirque, an ordinary circus appears vegetative, indeed.

"As a genre, I can't bear it," says Michael Smith, the artistic director of Alegría, the show that Cirque will be presenting. He hates the unimaginative music at circuses as well as the exploitation of animals for our amusement.

As for Cirque, "I see that more as theater in a tent than a circus," Smith says. "It's got the best parts of a circus, with the acrobatics that thrill people. If you go to the circus, you want to see people do things that you could never do and you couldn't dream another person would even think of doing. That element's still there."

Speaking from Montréal, Cirque du Soleil's home base, Smith noted that Alegría, created in 1994, was changed significantly earlier this year. He brought in the original creators to restage it from a show for the big top to one for arenas like the Dunk. Among the many shows that Cirque has created, Alegría is the favorite of Guy Laliberté, who formed the company with Daniel Gauthier in 1984.

Cirque has produced 15 shows and is currently touring eight of them simultaneously, having made 250 stops in more than 100 cities around the world in the last quarter-century.

Alegría is the darkest of all their creations — despite being Spanish for joy, the exclamation "Alegría! Alegría! Alegría!" expresses, on occasions of sadness, the affirmation that life must go on. The performance maintains a contrast between age and youth, weakness and strength, abusive power and frustrating powerlessness. For example, the show has characters costumed as old birds huddling together, representing conservative establishments, contrasting with ethereal angels wandering about, as young people do. There are 55 elaborately costumed performers, from acrobats and contortionists to singers and clowns, unfolding two hours that are part storyline, part state of mind.

"I've seen the show many times, and I'm still surprised when I catch certain things that I haven't seen before," Smith says.

He sees the somber dimension as amplifying the show's subject matter. "Tears can be tears of joy, they don't always have to be tears of sadness. So that's the theme that goes through. I think an important message to take from the show is that it's really important that we as humans hold our hands out to our neighbors."

Rosinha's Restaurant

BILL RODRIGUEZ — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:48:20 GMT

The traditional taste of Portugal
The latest eatery at Pawtucket's Hope Artiste Village is Rosinha's Restaurant, offering Portuguese cuisine — Cape Verdean, to be specific. Not wanting to give the wrong impression — music hipper and hoppier than fado sometimes reverberates from the Blackstone down the entrance corridor — a kind of manifesto stands at the door.

The latest eatery at Pawtucket's Hope Artiste Village is Rosinha's Restaurant, offering Portuguese cuisine — Cape Verdean, to be specific. Not wanting to give the wrong impression — music hipper and hoppier than fado sometimes reverberates from the Blackstone down the entrance corridor — a kind of manifesto stands at the door. "Casual Elegance," it declares. "Proper Dress Required — NO Hats, NO Do-rags, NO Baggy Jeans, NO Boots." A signature rose is at the top of the announcement, and proprietress Rosinha knows how to use it.

I was accompanied by a couple of regulars, Ed from the neighborhood and Stuart, known to chat in Portu-guese, so I didn't bother to hitch up my pants. There were no complaints from the lovely and cordial Rosinha Almeida, who greeted us at the door. At the 2008 Taste of Pawtucket, I'd enjoyed their Cape Verdean preparation of rice and seafood, so I was primed.

This space is vast and well-lit with tall windows, since the building complex used to house mills and warehouses. A modest number of tables are widely distributed among tall supporting columns. The exterior wall is rough brick with white paint mostly scoured off, which contrasts smartly with crystal chandeliers dangling prisms, kind of like a tuxedo top worn over dungarees. The gentle singing of Benvindo Cruz greets you by 7 every evening.

The menu headings are in Portuguese but clearly translated. The appetizers, all $7.95 and $8.95, contain familiar items plus a few surprises. A Portuguese restaurant has to have camarão con alho (shrimp in a spicy garlic sauce) and pastéis de bacalhau (fried codfish cakes). But Rosinha adds shrimp cakes, and I hadn't seen cogumelos recheados (baked mushrooms filled with crabmeat) before. The soup of the day ($4) was the familiar kale with chorizo, to enjoy with the traditional sweet rolls that come to every table.

To start out, we tried those garlic shrimp. They were sautéed in a butter and wine sauce and chilied up to spicy redness. I could have used more garlic and hotness, but I still found myself sopping up the sauce with my bread. There are two preparations of littlenecks among the appetizers, one with garlic sauce and one more elaborate. We went for the latter, ameijoas à Espanhola. This Spanish version adds onions and peppers in a tomato sauce — mmm, more sopping up — and can't help but throwing in lots of spicy chorizo. Very good decision.

Hail to the chief

PHILLIPE AND JORGE — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:43:11 GMT

The supreme Suttell. Plus, Newport news, and more on Michael.
Phillipe and Jorge are delighted to see that Paul Suttell, our pick for Chief Justice of the Vo Dilun Supreme Court, smoothly sailed through the General Assembly to assume that grand position.

Phillipe and Jorge are delighted to see that Paul Suttell, our pick for Chief Justice of the Vo Dilun Supreme Court, smoothly sailed through the General Assembly to assume that grand position. Fortunately, the hideously compromised Maureen McKenna Goldberg didn't claw her way into the spot abetted by the influence of her lobbyist husband, Robert. Buttressing our argument that Ms. Goldberg was a horrible fit for the position — and she should now just simply resign from the Supremes and do everyone a favor — is the fact that she once again had to recuse herself from taking part in a huge case, the Champlin's Marina expansion in Block Island, because hubby Bobby is involved (on the wrong/greed side, as usual).

No one P+J knows in politics has a bad word to say about Paul Suttell, which is the way it should be. He's not like political wheeler-dealer and famed tuxedo renter Tom Fay, nor is he like the rather alarmingly wild-eyed Frank Williams, Suttell's predecessor, who always gave one the impression that if a firecracker went off outside his window, he would whip out an Uzi and strafe the room with gunfire.

A SAD DECISION

Speaking of the Supremes, P+J were saddened to see their ruling in the case of former Senate President Bill Irons involving the Ethics Commission, which we saw as a blatant conflict of interest. Little Napoleon was hauling in hundreds of thousands in insurance commissions from his pal Tom Ryan, CEO of CVS, as well as Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, yet continued to vote on key pieces of pharmacy legislation that had huge financial ramifications for the companies.

Complex legal arguments aside for a moment, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like duck, it's a duck — and one that looks like it was swimming in a sewer. It is just another blow to the perception of the Biggest Little as the state that has the motto, "What's in it for me?"

This case will just make it harder for the Ethics Commission to do the job the people thought they had elected them for, as votes by legislators cannot be used against them by the Commission. That was the sound of champagne corks popping through Halitosis Hall when the verdict came in.

(P.S.: The lone dissenting vote in the 3-1 decision came from new Chief Justice Paul Suttell. And Maureen McKenna Goldberg recused herself yet again.)

AQUIDNECK SCHOOLING THE STATE

Moving Off the Plantation?

DAVID SCHARFENBERG — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:38:55 GMT

Rhode Island's identity crisis
Rhode Island, whatever its obsession with history, has only lately begun to come to terms with the darkest stain on its past: slavery.

Rhode Island, whatever its obsession with history, has only lately begun to come to terms with the darkest stain on its past: slavery.

It was just three years ago that Brown University's Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice released a report detailing the school's historical ties to the slave trade.

And as recently as March, the school was still unveiling its efforts at reparation. The latest: plans for a memorial exploring Brown's relationship with the peculiar institution.

Now, another effort.

Both houses of the General Assembly, prodded by black activists and politicians, have voted to put a constitutional amendment before voters that would shorten the state's official name from Rhode Island and Providence Plantations to, simply, Rhode Island.

The word "plantation," of course, conjures images of slavery. And if the question actually lands on the ballot — the Senate went into recess this week without passing the House version of the bill — Rhode Islanders will have a chance to take a symbolic swipe at a shameful epoch.

But will the push heal, as intended?

"The big issue is, what happens if it fails?" said Maureen Moakley, political science professor at the University of Rhode Island. "Where does it leave our notion of coming together and understanding? It could be divisive."

There is no polling data on the issue. But there is reason for proponents to be concerned.

When Rhode Island settled on its official name in 1636, the word "plantation" did not have the connotation it would pick up some two centuries later — it referred, more benignly, to the farms on the state's mainland. And there are early indications that a tradition-bound state could resist calls to change a name that was not intended to invoke bondage.

There are a handful of vocal opponents in the General Assembly. And as we went to print this week, nearly 84 percent of respondents to an informal survey on the Providence Journal's Web site were opposed to the idea.

Fear of rejection is already percolating in the state's small black activist community. "I don't want the people of Rhode Island to insult the advocates of racial justice — and that's what a 'no' vote would be," said Ray Rickman, a consultant who once served as a state representative and deputy secretary of state.

Artistic vision

MARION DAVIS — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:47:40 GMT

Providence bets on creativity
The vision is grand and ambitious, both in the big picture and in the details.

The vision is grand and ambitious, both in the big picture and in the details.

Providence becomes "a dynamic, regional arts market and center for creativity." Arts and crafts are woven into the fabric of the city, showcased in public spaces, in a public gallery and in private buildings. New galleries and performance venues thrive. Grants and business opportunities abound. Artists serve on city boards and have power and real influence.

In the future imagined by Creative Providence, the new blueprint for "arts, culture and creativity" unveiled last week, the marketing campaign with the trademark "P," the one that calls this the Creative Capital, is both perfectly appropriate and completely unnecessary.

But can it really happen? Will it?

Robert Leaver, of think tank New Commons, a key player in the plan's development, said at the unveiling, at the Hotel Providence, that some in the arts community were complaining the plan wasn't far-reaching enough, even though it's "a huge shift from where the city was."

Yet with a bullet point for just about everyone in the 42-page document, it may be overwhelming. And with Mayor David N. Cicilline admitting that in these "very difficult economic times," some goals may take up to five years to realize, perhaps it's a bit abstract.

So what is clear? One element that stands out — and for which the city is garnering praise – is that the Department of Art, Culture + Tourism, already unusual for its clout at City Hall, is being repositioned as a key player in economic policy-making and planning, as well as the leader in implementing the Creative Providence vision.

That change is one of 10 the mayor says can be made right away, or within the next 18 months (the remainder of his current term), even if funds are scarce. Cicilline also envisions immediate action to keep branding the city as a creative hub, strengthen arts education and the ties between schools and arts groups, expand arts-related job opportunities for youth, and continue to bring together artists and businesses, among other things.

Other goals, Leaver said, may be more elusive, and will be prioritized based on how long they might take to implement; the policy changes needed; the money, know-how, and logistics required.

The bottom line, however, is "if you're waiting for things to happen, you're going to have to make them happen," Leaver told the audience of artists, activists, and business leaders.

There are some optimists in the arts community.

Funny business

CHRIS CONTI — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:13:02 GMT

Louis C.K. has work to do
"I'm pasty, pale, overweight and I have red hair. I see that Coldstone Creamery and I want to crawl inside and hide," Louis C.K. responded when I asked if he recalled just how disgustingly hot and muggy Rhode Island could be during his 4th of July headlining set at the Newport Yachting Center.

"I'm pasty, pale, overweight and I have red hair. I see that Coldstone Creamery and I want to crawl inside and hide," Louis C.K. responded when I asked if he recalled just how disgustingly hot and muggy Rhode Island could be during his 4th of July headlining set at the Newport Yachting Center.

The Newton, Massachusetts, native played Newport last summer to a sold-out tent and immediately corralled the crowd with laughs as he pushed aside two giant easels displaying various sponsors. "Buy all this shit right here, people," he said waving his arm in a giant, circular motion. Two minutes in and Louis C.K. (a shortened take on his last name, Szekely) had the crowd roaring and didn't relent for more than 90 minutes, tearing through plenty of material from his two stand-up specials, 2008's Chewed Up (filmed at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston) and the '07 HBO special Shameless, offering skewed observations and near-horrific views on raising his two young daughters (like the Anti-Christ to Dr. Bill Cosby) with searing punchlines that usually resulted in those paused, hand-over-the-mouth laughs. C.K.'s recurring impersonation of drippy "douchebags at Starbucks" remains a personal favorite, along with views on getting fatter ("It's a downward spiral that begins with a donut, and the next thing you know I'm killing hookers") and why he prefers women over club chicks ("There's no Women Gone Wild, no one would buy that shit. When women go wild they kill men and drown their kids in the tub"). "Politically incorrect" doesn't even scratch the surface, and it's no wonder why fellow comedians are ready to deem him the heir apparent to George Carlin. David Cross recently told Time magazine that "Louis C.K. is doing his best work ever . . . He's America's most important and funniest comedian."

Louis C.K. has been on the circuit for more than 20 years and, during a brief phoner two weeks ago, he recalled his early days kicking around New England, including many kind words for old friend (and Ocean State Follies ringmaster) Charlie Hall.

"Charlie Hall is the funniest person in Rhode Island," he told me. "He was always gracious and kind to me when I was coming up and constantly playing little hole-in-the-wall places like Periwinkles in Providence."

The block is hot

CHRIS CONTI — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:05:43 GMT

Jumping genres at Providence Sound Session '09
The summer sun has arrived just in time for the "premier genre-defying summer music festival" known as Sound Session '09, a weeklong block party and musical melting pot for the masses kicking off on Sunday, July 5 and culminating in the climactic, carnival-style parade trough downtown on Saturday, July 11.

The summer sun has arrived just in time for the "premier genre-defying summer music festival" known as Sound Session '09, a weeklong block party and musical melting pot for the masses kicking off on Sunday, July 5 and culminating in the climactic, carnival-style parade trough downtown on Saturday, July 11. The sixth annual series will expand citywide, having umbrellaed a slew of free or low-dough gigs from parks to clubs and cafés, anticipating more than 60,000 music lovers and partygoers throughout the week. From Latin jazz to salsa to alt-rock to gospel and reggae — SS'09 has you covered.

The highly successful partnership between the Providence Black Repertory Company and the Department of Arts, Culture & Tourism has paid dividends yet again with the inclusion of the Kennedy Plaza Skating Center as a main stage venue and bringing some serious heat with a sick roster of rap talent that includes street legends Fat Joe and Noreaga, backed by a bevy of renowned Rhody wordsmiths on Friday, July 10. Other top shelf headliners include Chilean singer/songwriter Claudia Acuna, the Washington, DC-based Marc Cary Trio, and New York-via-London Afrobeat icon Wunmi, who tore the house down at last year's event.

"Sound Session is the type of experience that positions Providence as a city that embraces individual expression and cultural diversity," said PBRC executive/artistic director Donald King.

Sound Session's all-encompassing mantra is even more evident this year, looking to "expand the festival footprint" by incorporating the Cape Verdean Independence Day Festival along with nearly 50 venues throughout the city. The Black Rep recently hosted a weekly Sound Search contest and the three winners — Santa Mamba, Infusion Experience, and Boston's Los Sugar Kings — will perform, and will be guaranteed prime time slots at Sound Session '10. And this year the Black Rep decided to hook up the majority of Sound Search contestants with performance opportunities.

"This year marks the beginning of something bigger," said Donald King. "We've established so many new and wonderful relationships with our New England artists, and we will continue to aggressively advocate for all participants."

With five main stages and dozens of shows scheduled, Sound Session '09 is gonna be straight bananas. We're here to help map out the madness with a glimpse of the lineup.

Reaction Jackson

MICHAEL BRODEUR — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:17:58 GMT

How to mourn a mess
There was Michael the living, breathing, singing performer and Jackson the commercial spectacle. We surrendered to the former, he to the latter.

GONE TOO LATE: Mourning Jackson felt oddly overdue, as if the sudden death he'd suffered 24 hours earlier were nothing compared to the slow one he'd been undergoing for the previous 24 years.

The day after Michael Jackson died, I was in line at the supermarket. The tabloids were still dumb on the matter, but the aisles were ablaze. A man in front of me was unloading 12 bottles of Pepsi onto the conveyor and going on about it to the cashier, how Jackson had just died, how he wasn't a fan himself, how no one he knew could believe it . . .

". . . . but you know," he said, pausing to make sure he had listeners, "he did it to himself. All those drugs." His tone was one of familiar disappointment, as though years worth of his gentle warnings to Michael had gone ignored — and now look what had happened. Through this, the cashier fixed her glare on the wad of crumply ones he'd handed her, keeping it together until such time as he'd waddled off. When he did, she looked to the ceiling, released a long groan, turned slowly back toward me, smiled, and scanned my Shaw's card.

"I don't like people saying he did it to himself," I offered. "I don't know why I don't like it, but I don't."

"No. I don't like it either," she said. "It was everybody else that did it."

I wanted to ask her whether she felt the same sense of relief that I did. If she thought this mourning felt oddly overdue, as if the sudden death he'd suffered 24 hours earlier were nothing compared to the slow one he'd been undergoing for the past 24 years. But a line was forming behind me, more people buying more Pepsi, so I nodded and left.

At home, the TV was already on in the corner. All day it had been spilling hour after live hour of "everybody else," what Jackson referred to as "the incredible, terrible media," teams upon teams of precision-saddened anchors either leaking speculative sotto voce autopsy augury or getting swept up in selectively forgetful austerity. It was like watching a puppy realize the mouse he'd been using as a toy was now crushed beneath his paw.

K is for clown

CLIF GARBODEN — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:31:10 GMT

The lighter side of global annihilation
The lighter side of global annihilation

HARPO MARXISM: But Carlson's chronicle goes well beyond being a farcical collection of outrageous stories.

K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude, Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist | By Peter Carlson | PublicAffairs | 344 pages | $26.95

America's most famous diplomatic guest was anything but diplomatic. He contradicted and insulted his hosts, provoked a media riot in a California supermarket, manhandled a turkey, fondled a gatecrasher's pot belly, threw a tantrum over a canceled trip to Disneyland, and threatened global annihilation. This stuff writes itself.

Former Washington Post reporter Peter Carlson would no doubt agree, and the PR material promoting K Blows Top, his chronicle of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev's 1959 visit to the US, promises a non-stop comic romp through Harpo Marxism. There are indeed plenty of absurdities and cheap gags here, but if all you expect is buffoonery and shtick, you'll be pleasantly disappointed.

The book — fast-paced, delightfully sardonic, and thoroughly enjoyable — goes well beyond being a farcical collection of outrageous stories about the gauche behavior of a wacky former Stalinist mass murderer confronting America's high-born and average Joes. Given our hindsight knowledge that Communism fizzled, the very notion that the childish outbursts of an egomaniacal, sleep-deprived dictator were perceived as serious global death threats is laughable. But people weren't laughing so much in 1959.

Our guest was, after all, the main monster in American's post-war nightmares, the powerful madman with his finger on the nuclear-holocaust button. With a light hand, Carlson integrates the backdrop of the repressive 1950s and the grimmer implications — political, economic, diplomatic — lurking behind each snapshot of the Soviet leader's flamboyant travelogue. It's a revealing portrait of a treacherous decade when the media — especially nascent television, whose news departments seldom questioned the views of the government that controlled their broadcast licenses — were almost as innocent as they were influential.

As we look back, it's easy to see that K's comic odyssey was showmanship masquerading as diplomacy, with both sides of the ideological split playing it as a press event — a 10-day photo op with each team scrambling to score points by out-boasting, out-charming, and out-ad-libbing the other. Nelson Rockefeller and Khrushchev trading pulled punches for the cameras in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria is just the broadest manifestation of the burlesque.

Review: Prototype

MITCH KRPATA — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:49:03 GMT

The gleeful excess of Prototype
Prototype is so awesome, it broke my PlayStation 3.

VIDEO: The trailer for Prototype

Prototype | For Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC | Rated M for Mature | Developed by Radical Entertainment | Published by Activision

Prototype is so awesome, it broke my PlayStation 3. All right, the game probably wasn't the cause, but my PS3 did melt down while I was playing, and Prototype is as likely a culprit as anything. This game is so ridiculous, so over-the-top, that my poor console may have simply decided, "No más."

Prototype has a lot in common with the recent PlayStation 3 exclusive inFamous. Both are open-world superhero games set in bustling cities. Both are about a terrorist strike on the populace by a shadowy fifth column. And both star gloomy, rasping protagonists who can scale tall buildings with ease, and who boast an array of upgradable powers.

Yet the two games feel completely different. inFamous seemed to expect you to invest in the inner struggles of its electrified hero. Prototype is in on the joke. Alex Mercer is a former employee of an ethically dubious bio-medical firm who finds himself afflicted with strange new powers and, you will not be surprised to learn, amnesia. To unravel the twisted drama that led to his transformation, Alex must devour its key players, in order to absorb their memories. Yes, you read that right.

Also like inFamous, Prototype combines platforming and combat in equal measure. Movement is a blast, lightning-quick and intuitive. Ascending isn't about looking for handholds — Alex can simply run up the side of the Empire State Building, before leaping off and gliding several blocks. As for the battles, there's so much going on, it's a wonder you can keep track. Alex takes on tanks, helicopters, foot soldiers, mutants, and drones — all at the same time. He's a shapeshifter, so his arms can bludgeon, slice, whip, and pummel his foes into a crimson goo. He can commandeer tanks and helicopters, fire guns, and, just for good measure, execute pro-wrestling-style elbow drops off the roofs of buildings. Just when you think you've seen it all, here comes something else.

The kitchen-sink approach is not a good model for games. Better to do one thing exceedingly well than to whiff on several. But Prototype's commitment to every facet of its gameplay pays dividends. I groaned, early on, when it appeared that the game would include a stealth element. The last thing you want to do in an action game is creep around.

Review: Public Enemies

PETER KEOUGH — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:48:51 GMT

Michael Mann's reheated crime waive
The gangster movie ruled Depression-era cinema — and that might be cause for concern about our present economic difficulties should the genre make a comeback.

The gangster movie ruled Depression-era cinema — and that might be cause for concern about our present economic difficulties should the genre make a comeback. But after seeing Michael Mann's Public Enemies, I don't think we need to worry for now. Perfunctory, uninspired, and largely pointless, it bears little resemblance to the director's intense and masterful Heat. And it's unlikely to spawn many imitators.

Perhaps gangsters prevailed on the screen in the '30s because they were rampaging in real life. Newspapers and the popular imagination inflated these louts into folk heroes, successors to those Wild West desperadoes who went after the financial institutions that exploited the downtrodden common man. Said gangsters included John Dillinger (Johnny Depp, who doesn't look much like the other JD despite the bad haircut), a bank-robbing Indiana farm boy with a knack for breaking out of prison, and for disarming prosecuting attorneys with his aw-shucks charm. (Depp's similarity to George W. Bush in this regard has been noted.)

Not to be outdone on the PR front, Justice Department Bureau of Investigation (yet to become the FBI) honcho J. Edgar Hoover (an unrecognizable Billy Crudup, whose performance as the epicene martinet might be the best thing in the movie) seeks to elevate his fledgling organization to the big time by extending his jurisdiction and chasing down flamboyant culprits like Dillinger. He assigns golden boy Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale, hovering somewhere between Robert Duvall and Robert Stack) to the case, and the bullets and the clichés fly.

Mann seems undecided about what he wants Enemies to accomplish, so he tries a little bit of everything, and the result is a collection of listless sequences (shot in dim, sepia-tone chiaroscuro illuminated by the occasional muzzle flash) that reminded me of sequences in other, mostly better, movies. The media-image and celebrity-promotion theme — which might have been the most productive direction for Public Enemies to follow — derives from Arthur Penn's Bonnie & Clyde. So does a fitfully effective nighttime shoot-out at a motel. Although the similar incidents in both movies are based on fact, you can't help noticing how much more exciting Penn's version is.

Review: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

ALICIA POTTER — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:30:32 GMT

Pummeling awfulness
Directed by Carlos Saldanha and Mike Thurmeier, the third go-round of the animated franchise — this time in 3-D — is as numbing as its geological era.

Review: My Sister's Keeper

TOM MEEK — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:19:53 GMT

Not quite the sum of its parts
Nick Cassavetes ( The Notebook ) gives competent direction to this weepie of the highest order, and there's an eclectic cast headed by Cameron Diaz, Jason Patric, and Little Miss Sunshine, Abigail Breslin.

Iggy Pop | Préliminaires

GUSTAVO TURNER — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:09:00 GMT

Astralwerks (2009)
Astralwerks (2009)

The Most Serene Republic | . . . And the Ever Expanding Universe

JAKE COHEN — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:10:16 GMT

Arts and Crafts (2009)
The Most Serene Republic were the first group signed to Arts and Crafts that had no relationship to Broken Social Scene.

Bibio | Ambivalence Avenue

MICHAEL BRODEUR — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:19:36 GMT

Warp (2009)
Since this new record by Wolverhampton's Stephen James Wilkinson (a/k/a Bibio) has done nothing but delight me, I'm going to honor the sentiments posted to his MySpace blog and spare him the f-word and all variants thereof.

Bowerbirds | Upper Air

RYAN STEWART — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:45:48 GMT

Dead Oceans (2009)
North Carolina's Bowerbirds take the prevailing indie-rock æsthetic — ornate, textured arrangements, clean vocal harmonies — and apply them to Southern gothic, Appalachian bluegrass, and folk.

Future of the Left | Travels With Myself and Another

ZETH LUNDY — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:09:36 GMT

4D (2009)
There's a fine line between stupid and clever, as Spinal Tap once quipped, and don't these Future of the Left guys just know it.

Happy Independence Day from our founders

MATT BORS — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:57:17 GMT

Idiot Box
It was their original intent!