Reviews
Elvis: Baz Luhrmann’s Gloriously Dizzying Film Takes Care of Presley’s Business
Baz Luhrmann’s unparalleled, and some would say over-the-top production style works very well to present the arc of Elvis Presley‘s career. The story is told through the eyes of Presley’s mercurial manager, Col. Tom Parker, astutely played by Tom Hanks. The Oscar-winning actor draws us in with his conspiratorial voiceovers, and then we see Presley’s puppet-like reaction. The funhouse mirror scene when Parker woos Elvis, whether apocryphal, is a perfect metaphor for the career Parker shapes for Presley. Parker leveraged his astute judgment of human nature to pluck Presley from obscurity as a truck driver and move him quickly from a traveling circus-like roadshow to the pinnacle of mainstream popularity. Parker’s voiceovers consistently speak about his skill at conjuring up more snow ...
Bonnaroo 2022 Photo Gallery: Denzel Curry, Stevie Nicks, Tool and More
After Bonnaroo 2020 was canceled due to the coronavirus, and the the 2021 attempt at resurrection was foiled by Hurricane Ida, the festival on the farm looked to make it’s long-awaited comeback in June 2022. And despite a storm delay that triggered flashbacks of last-year’s waterlogged campsite, Bonnaroo 2022 beat the odds and completed its first full weekend in three years. Here’s the visual evidence, courtesy of photographer Anthony Merriweather, who was on the ground for Consequence all weekend long. Headlined by J. Cole, Tool, and Stevie Nicks, the Tennessee festival also featured performances from Denzel Curry, The War on Drugs, Wallows, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Goose, Disclosure, and more. Jack Antonoff also led a star-studded SuperJam set, which saw acts like Carly Rae Je...
Bonnaroo 2022 Photo Gallery: Denzel Curry, Stevie Nicks, Tool and More
After Bonnaroo 2020 was canceled due to the coronavirus, and the the 2021 attempt at resurrection was foiled by Hurricane Ida, the festival on the farm looked to make it’s long-awaited comeback in June 2022. And despite a storm delay that triggered flashbacks of last-year’s waterlogged campsite, Bonnaroo 2022 beat the odds and completed its first full weekend in three years. Here’s the visual evidence, courtesy of photographer Anthony Merriweather, who was on the ground for Consequence all weekend long. Headlined by J. Cole, Tool, and Stevie Nicks, the Tennessee festival also featured performances from Denzel Curry, The War on Drugs, Wallows, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Goose, Disclosure, and more. Jack Antonoff also led a star-studded SuperJam set, which saw acts like Carly Rae Je...
MUNA’s Brilliant New Album Drips With Sex, Freedom and Synth-Pop Bliss
Hidden beneath all the thumping revelry, newfound freedom, and summertime horniness of MUNA’s marvelous third album, there flows an undercurrent of irony. The Los Angeles trio released two albums, in 2017 and 2019, on RCA Records, a major label with all the resources a budding indie band could ever need to launch them into the pop stratosphere. Yet MUNA remained on the fringes — well-reviewed with two-dozen dates opening for Harry Styles and The 1975, but far from a household name. So what would it take for MUNA’s big break? How about signing to emo-folk favorite Phoebe Bridgers’ new imprint Saddest Factory Records (in partnership with Dead Oceans) in 2021, which birthed the queer-love anthem and alt-radio mainstay “Silk Chiffon” (featuring Bridgers) in September and notched the group’s fi...
Only Murders In the Building Season 2 Continues the Twisty Mystery Fun: Review
The Pitch: When we last saw Charles Haden-Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), things weren’t looking great for the trio. Season 1 of Hulu’s Only Murders In the Building was a 2021 hit following the journey of the aforementioned crew as the grew from strangers and neighbors in glamorous New York apartment The Arconia to something of a chaotic family. After setting out to solve the murder of fellow Arconia resident Tim Kono by way of true crime podcast — and somehow succeeding in the matter — Charles, Oliver, and Mabel think all that’s left to do is pop some champagne and celebrate. When a mysterious text urges them to get out of the building while they can, things take a turn for the worse — Charles and Oliver stumble into yet another murder s...
Only Murders In the Building Season 2 Continues the Twisty Mystery Fun: Review
The Pitch: When we last saw Charles Haden-Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), things weren’t looking great for the trio. Season 1 of Hulu’s Only Murders In the Building was a 2021 hit following the journey of the aforementioned crew as the grew from strangers and neighbors in glamorous New York apartment The Arconia to something of a chaotic family. After setting out to solve the murder of fellow Arconia resident Tim Kono by way of true crime podcast — and somehow succeeding in the matter — Charles, Oliver, and Mabel think all that’s left to do is pop some champagne and celebrate. When a mysterious text urges them to get out of the building while they can, things take a turn for the worse — Charles and Oliver stumble into yet another murder s...
Nova Twins Fight the Good Fight with the Genre-Bending Supernova: Review
Sometimes, the best art is born out of adversity, struggle and strife. Look at some of the greatest creative movements in history, for example. The protest songs of the ‘60s, the Harlem Renaissance — they come from times when pain, oppression and destruction were to no longer be tolerated by the masses. For UK’s Nova Twins, that adversity, struggle and strife was large scale — an intersectional pile on of racism, sexism, environmental decline, and the loss of rights. Their sophomore album, Supernova, tackles some of these issues from the opposite perspective, focusing on the reclamation of what’s been taken rather than the agonizing over what’s been lost. Instead of forlorn lyrics directly reflecting our many tragedies, the duo, Amy Love and Georgia South to be specific, create agency in t...
Nova Twins Fight the Good Fight with the Genre-Bending Supernova: Review
Sometimes, the best art is born out of adversity, struggle and strife. Look at some of the greatest creative movements in history, for example. The protest songs of the ‘60s, the Harlem Renaissance — they come from times when pain, oppression and destruction were to no longer be tolerated by the masses. For UK’s Nova Twins, that adversity, struggle and strife was large scale — an intersectional pile on of racism, sexism, environmental decline, and the loss of rights. Their sophomore album, Supernova, tackles some of these issues from the opposite perspective, focusing on the reclamation of what’s been taken rather than the agonizing over what’s been lost. Instead of forlorn lyrics directly reflecting our many tragedies, the duo, Amy Love and Georgia South to be specific, create agency in t...
Nova Twins Fight the Good Fight with the Genre-Bending Supernova: Review
Sometimes, the best art is born out of adversity, struggle and strife. Look at some of the greatest creative movements in history, for example. The protest songs of the ‘60s, the Harlem Renaissance — they come from times when pain, oppression and destruction were to no longer be tolerated by the masses. For UK’s Nova Twins, that adversity, struggle and strife was large scale — an intersectional pile on of racism, sexism, environmental decline, and the loss of rights. Their sophomore album, Supernova, tackles some of these issues from the opposite perspective, focusing on the reclamation of what’s been taken rather than the agonizing over what’s been lost. Instead of forlorn lyrics directly reflecting our many tragedies, the duo, Amy Love and Georgia South to be specific, create agency in t...
Elvis Review: Baz Luhrmann’s First Biopic Is Not As Absurd and Ahistorical As You Might Expect
The Pitch: Baz Luhrmann, the Australian maximalist behind such audaciously stylized films as Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby, has taken on his first biopic, and it’s a monster. Although a few attempts have been made at dramatizing the life story of Elvis Presley, most notably Kurt Russell in John Carpenter’s 1979 film also titled Elvis, Luhrmann’s movie is by far the biggest and boldest yet, with an $85 million budget dwarfing every other Presley biopic combined. Austin Butler, a 30-year-old actor who made his name with several teen and tween-friendly TV roles on the Disney Channel and The CW, is the unlikely star of this massive biography of the King of Rock’n’Roll. An Anaheim native whose most prestigious previous project was a small role as a member of the Manson Family in Once Upon ...
The Umbrella Academy Season 3 Treats Elliot Page’s Transition With Respect: Review
The Pitch: The Umbrella Academy is not a subtle show. Characters outwardly express both what’s happening on screen and their feelings about it. The cinematography calls constant attention to itself with aerial shots and CGI camera maneuvers to glide us around stately mansions and old-fashioned hotels. In one episode of the show’s third season, “Cat’s in the Cradle” plays as an ironic musical accompaniment for a spoof on a father-and-son bonding montage. There are somehow needle drops more obvious than that. That The Umbrella Academy is a show that, in a way, serves as its own audio description, might be more of a liability were it not for its characters, both the core of ne’er-do-well estranged adopted Hargreeves super-siblings as well as the many beings they get to know. Watching this sho...
Lightyear Review: A Sweet, But Relatively Safe Buzz Lightyear Origin Story
The Pitch: It’s fitting that after four editions of Toy Story over the last 25 years, numerous spin-off shows and games, and a still-undisputed legacy status, Pixar simply wasn’t done telling stories in this universe. But this one is a bit of a curveball: In the year 1995, a young boy named Andy is given an action figure of Buzz Lightyear, a space ranger who served as the protagonist in Andy’s favorite film. Lightyear is that film. Lightyear promises to be the definitive origin story of one of the film’s most iconic characters, complete with a sci-fi backdrop, his signature attitude and catchphrase, and a major appearance from Buzz’s primary antagonist, Zurg. Though they’ve traded Tim Allen for Chris Evans in the recording booth, there’s undoubtedly a classic Pixar feel to Lightyear. The f...
