Reviews
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Spin Their Wheels on Cool It Down
When the Yeah Yeah Yeahs ensnared the rock consciousness with Fever to Tell almost 20 years ago, the band’s true magic was never bound to where they’d been — the romanticized New York underground pedigree, those “had to be there” early shows — but where they might be going. With Fever, in all its exhilarating, teeth-baring bar room glory, every moment felt as though Karen O, Nick Zinner and Brian Chase were hurtling toward the precipice of something extraordinary, and perhaps with a little more time to grow and live, the young trio would bloom into one of the most indispensable rock bands of the 21st century. But that never really happened. The follow-up, 2006’s Show Your Bones, was more tentative and familiar in an uninspiring way — wholly forgettable, especially 15 years later. The alt-p...
Foo Fighters Honor Taylor Hawkins with a Second Six-Hour Musical Lovefest in L.A.: Review
We’ve been at a collective loss since the passing of beloved and ultra-talented drummer Taylor Hawkins. The Foo Fighters staple had a place in the hearts of many inside the music world and outside of it — a piece to the grand puzzle that leaves it incomplete now that it’s gone. As if the initial tribute show in London’s Wembley Stadium earlier this month wasn’t proof enough, another horde of Hawkins fans sold out The Kia Forum in Inglewood on Tuesday night (September 27th) with hearts swelling and energy flowing, not knowing exactly what laid ahead of them. For another six hours, as with Wembley, David Grohl and his rotating cast of guests rolled their way through some of Hawkins’ favorite tracks, as well as Foo Fighters classics. And while family was again an overarching theme of the nigh...
The Anxiety and Ambition of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Cool It Down
It goes without saying that the world has changed since the Yeah Yeah Yeahs unleashed their feral debut album, Fever to Tell, in 2003. Written in the wake of of 9/11, it was a 37-minute adrenaline rush of post-punk you can dance to. The record cemented them as an integral part of the wave of guitar-heavy New York bands, such as The Strokes and Interpol, that rose to prominence at the start of the century. Even now, they’re still considered a New York band, despite the city, its music, the band themselves, and the world around them continuing to change. The band went on hiatus shortly after releasing their third album Mosquito in 2013, though Karen O focused on releasing her solo work and contributing to film soundtracks, and became a mother for the first time. Meanwhile, Nick Zinner lent h...
The Munsters Review: Rob Zombie’s ‘60s Sitcom Reboot Embraces Its Campy Source Material
The Pitch: Herman Munster, a big goofy lummox made of reanimated dead bodies in the style of Frankenstein’s monster, marries the ghoul of his dreams, a vampire named Lily. But the newlyweds aren’t shacked up in her father The Count’s castle in Transylvania for long before they’re unceremoniously kicked out, and decide to start a new life in America. The Munsters is rock star-turned-horror auteur Rob Zombie’s reboot of the CBS series of the same name, which ran for two seasons in the mid-‘60s, and then staggered around for decades in syndication like the living dead. And while the Netflix film is a prequel, detailing Herman and Lily’s meet cute before the birth of their sitcom son, werewolf boy Eddie Munster, it’s otherwise impressively faithful to the source material’s look and sense of hu...
Demi Lovato Rages at “HOLY FVCK” Tour Stop in Sacramento: Review and Setlist
After months of anticipation and the release of a rock-centric new album, Demi Lovato played their first solo show on the US leg of their “HOLY FVCK” tour (grab tickets here) at Sacramento’s Hard Rock Live on Thursday night (September 22nd). Dressed in all red and supported by an incredible backing band, Lovato was in excellent form, showcasing her powerhouse vocals while proving they’re well-suited for just about any genre, be it the pop sound that comprised Lovato’s last several albums, or the heavier rock tone that persists on her 2022 entry Holy Fvck. First up was opener Dead Sara, a Los Angeles five-piece who ripped their way through a barrage of tracks that combined hard rock, punk, and grunge elements. Frontwoman Emily Armstrong — who also features on the Holy Fvck album standout “H...
Bros Refuses to Apologize For The Specifics of Queer Romance (Except When It Does): Review
The Pitch: Bobby Lieber (Billy Eichner) is a successful pillar of the gay community in New York City: He’s got a popular podcast, he’s the director of what’s soon to be the nation’s first LGBTQ+ history museum, and he was just named “Cis White Gay Man of the Year.” The only thing missing is a man in his life, but Bobby isn’t into all that: “Love is not love,” he stresses early on to his friends, rejecting the oft-used gay rights sentiment as a lie to get straight people to treat queer folks like human beings. Instead, he chips away at one awkward Grindr hookup after another. But fortune changes when Bobby runs into hunky estate lawyer Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) at a club; they each clock the other as angry and boring, respectively, and their shared fatigue for the performative, ima...
Dahmer Review: Ryan Murphy’s Serial Killer Drama Puts the Victims First
The Pitch: What often gets lost in the lurid stories of America’s most infamous serial killers is how profoundly they expose the cracks in our democracy. Such is the case for Jeffrey Dahmer (Evan Peters), a lonely and disturbed young man who murdered and dismembered 17 young men between the years of 1978 and 1991. The horrific details of those murders gained Dahmer immediate fame when he was finally arrested in 1991 and eventually sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment: this was a necrophiliac, a cannibalistic child molester, a gay man who drugged and killed other gay men at the height of the AIDS epidemic. When the Milwaukee Police Department searched Dahmer’s apartment, they found so many severed body parts that the chief medical examiner described the experience as “more like disman...
Interview With the Vampire Review: AMC Delivers a Proudly Queer Take on the Anne Rice Saga
The Pitch: Vampires are back! Really, our bloodsucking undead brethren never truly go out of style, but it’s been a few years since the sparkly Twilight boom and it’s time for the original kings of the genre to make their way to the forefront. Hence AMC throwing a lot of money behind a lavish adaptation of Anne Rice’s multi-million best-selling gothic saga, The Vampire Chronicles — starting with her most famous work, Interview With the Vampire. The late Rice essentially reinvented the modern vampire, turning them into baroque creatures of sensuality and emotion, and with it, she inspired intense devotion from her fans. It’s no mean feat for any creator to take on this saga for the big or small screen, given that it encompasses hundreds of characters, thousands of years, a total r...
Lil Nas X Introduces the Man Behind the Meme at New York’s Radio City: Review and Setlist
When arriving at a show on the “Long Live Montero Tour” (grab tickets to remaining dates here), you’re first greeted by venue security handing you a Playbill. It’s a jarring experience — particularly, as was the case at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall on September 20th, when a local radio DJ is warming up the audience by blasting songs you might have attempted to grind to at a homecoming dance. But this Playbill actually sets the scene well: It has a photo of Lil Nas X on the front, adorned with butterfly wings and all. “I hate writing stuff that isn’t music but my people are forcing me at gunpoint to write this welcome note,” reads the first page in a hand-scribbled passage from the rapper, who certainly isn’t known for doing things in earnest. “This play is about my journey, what I...
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story Shines Thanks to a Deadpan Daniel Radcliffe: Review
This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. The Pitch: Based on the 100% true story of comedian/musician/renegade polka king’s rapid rise to superstardom, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is an “unflinching” look at “Weird” Al Yankovic’s chaotic life. From his childhood as a closeted accordion player, to his brief flirtation with the hot underground polka scene, to his excessive rock and roll lifestyle to his artistic struggles, to his tumultuous romance for the ages with Madonna, and his deadly feud with a legendary drug lord, writer/director Eric Appel and co-writer Al Yankovic pull no punches. This is as real and serious as it gets. Related Video Generic Blues: A fake biopic of “Weird” Al Yankovic is most likely a foolproof formula. How wrong can you...
Kaley Cuoco and Pete Davidson Charm in the Time Loop Rom-Com Meet Cute: Review
The Pitch: It’s a tale as old as time: Gary (Pete Davidson) and Sheila (Kaley Cuoco) meet at a bar, and it’s basically love at first sight. She notices him because he’s the only one in the bar not watching the Big Game. He notices her because she’s funny, witty, unexpected, and a little kooky; their droll senses of humor bounce off each other like electricity. As their night goes from bar to restaurant to slow walks and talks along the riverside, it seems like their moment-one spark is too good to be true. Well, that might be because it is: It doesn’t take long for Sheila to fess up to the fact that their spontaneous meeting wasn’t so spontaneous: She’s lived this night dozens of times before, thanks to a magical tanning machine in a nearby nail salon that zaps you back 24 hours in ti...
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever Is the Worst-Reviewed Movie on Rotten Tomatoes — 20 Years Later, Is It Still That Bad?
According to Rotten Tomatoes, there has never been a movie quite like Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. The 2002 film, which stars Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu as espionage agents on opposite ends of an action-packed conspiracy, turns 20 years old today, and it bears one of the most unfortunate distinctions in the entire entertainment industry: It has 118 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and every single one of them says it’s bad. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is not the only movie with a 0% on the internet’s best-known review aggregator, but not all the zero-percenters are equal on that site. Even notorious duds like Jaws: The Revenge and Highlander II: The Quickening only have a fraction of the reviews have been logged for Ballistic. The odds that out of 118 critics, not a single one of them ever gave ...
