Reviews
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s BigBug Is a Glitchy Robo-Farce: Review
The Pitch: It’s the year 2050, and advances in artificial intelligence have led to a bright, bubbly utopia where robotic servants and maids see to our every whim, from cleaning our homes to, well, cleaning our pipes. But when one brand of security robots, the Yonyx (François Levantal), decides to take over and wrest control of Earth from humanity’s hands, the domestic robots of one suburban home decide to lock their humans inside their well-manicured domicile — for their own safety, of course. As the hours and days pass, the unwitting hostages of domesticity — including divorced couple Alice (Elsa Zylberstein) and Victor (Youssef Hajdi) and their respective new partners Max (Stéphane de Groodt) and Jennifer (Claire Chust), daughter Nina (Marysole Fertard), Max’s bratty son Leo (Hélie ...
Big Thief’s Mammoth New Album Overflows With Indie-Folk Ambition
To label Big Thief’s panoramic new project a “double album” is something of a misnomer. In totality, the 81-minute mammoth that is Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You is not two halves but four quarters, divided by as many distinct recording sessions, in upstate New York; Topanga Canyon, California; the Colorado Rocky Mountains; and Tucson, Arizona. The acclaimed indie-folk foursome has become known for their deliberate recording techniques, especially evident in 2019’s celebrated sister LPs U.F.O.F. and Two Hands — the former captured the lushness and claustrophobia of the Washington state forest where it was laid down, while the latter was purposefully open and austere, mimicking western Texas’ desolation. For the band’s fifth album, however, the sessions do not so much attempt to ...
The Best Way to Enjoy The Book of Boba Fett Is to Embrace the Mess
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the season finale of The Book of Boba Fett, “Chapter 7: In The Name of Honor.”] The funny thing about The Book of Boba Fett is that a whole lot of people would have been a lot happier if they’d just done something different with the title. While the series started off as a stand-alone tale of the famed bounty hunter’s (Temuera Morrison) transformation into a new kind of crime boss, as seen with Episode 5 the show took an abrupt turn by bringing back famed Space Daddy Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), with the second half of the season serving as a clear sequel to the end of The Mandalorian Season 2. Now that we’ve reached the end of the season, all that’s left to do is try to sort out what, exactly, happened here. Because nothing feels in ba...
Inventing Anna Review: Shonda Rhimes Reminds Us That She’s the Master of Captivating TV
The Pitch: If there is one constant running through the work of Shonda Rhimes, it’s this: Her instincts for what makes a good story are dead on. Not every show with her name on it is an out-of-the-gate hit like Bridgerton or Grey’s Anatomy — rest in peace, The Catch, a great little show about con artists that deserved more of a chance. But it’s impossible to say that a Shondaland series is ever boring. Speaking of con artists, though… Inventing Anna, the new limited series premiering this Friday on Netflix, represents Rhimes’ first Netflix project that bears her name as not just a producer, but a creator. And you can sense why she chose not to hand this project off to someone else, given how many delicate elements are involved in these nine episodes — primarily, the depiction of its two le...
Sparks Kick Off North American Tour at Walt Disney Concert Hall: Recap + Photos
As Edgar Wright’s exhilarating documentary The Sparks Brothers illustrated so well, Ron and Russell Mael, aka Sparks, are “your favorite band’s favorite band” for good reason. The duo have been making delightfully dramatic, experimental yet accessible art rock for over 50 years. Whether they were prancing on Top of The Pops in the ‘70s or blasting from transistor radios on KROQ 106.7 FM in the ‘80s, they never really “fit in” with what was popular at the time. But last night (February 7th) at Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, illuminated by an array of multi-hued stage lights and backed by a solid five-piece band, they were a splendid fit. The Hall is home to the LA Philharmonic, and its grand aesthetic and layout (inside and out), not to mention its unmatched acoustics, make seeing ...
Mitski Blazes Forward on the Enigmatic Laurel Hell
Mitski had made up her mind after finishing her “Be The Cowboy” tour in late 2019: after months of frequent shows, press, and supporting her biggest album to date, she was quitting music for good. “I felt it was shaving away my soul little by little,” said Mitski in a recent profile, describing the anxiety, pressure, and existential dread she was experiencing as simply too much to bear. Of course, endings aren’t always that simple. She began working on Be The Cowboy’s follow-up quickly after, but only because she was contractually obligated to do so; yet, after over two years of writing and recording in the midst of a global pandemic, Mitski arrives this week (February 4th) with her sixth studio album, Laurel Hell. And by all measures, Laurel Hell is yet another phenomenal entry in Mitski’...
On Laurel Hell, Mitski Dashes for the Dance Floor
In March, Mitski Miyawaki will play her first sold-out show at Radio City Music Hall — by far the largest headlining performance of her career, nearly quadruple the size of her last top-billing gig in New York City. Surely the indie noble will be scared shitless; who wouldn’t? That’s 6,000 people you’re supposed to entertain! But during that milestone set, there will be a moment, maybe several, when the full, pounding impact of Laurel Hell, Mitski’s exhilarating sixth LP, envelopes the cavernous theater in synth and the understated artist — who two albums ago was playing tiny clubs to 100 fans — transforms into a bonafide, beaming pop star. OK, maybe that’s assuming too much, but still — the new album, out this Friday, marks the relentlessly acclaimed singer’s first attempt at writing song...
Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood Take The Smile for a Round in 24-Hour, Three-Show Concert Series: Recap
The Smile, the English trio formed by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Sons of Kemet’s Tom Skinner, officially became audience-tested as they completed their first run of in-person performances over the weekend (January 29th-30th) with three shows in just over 12 hours. The trio convened at the Greenwich venue Magazine London for three consecutive concerts at 8:00 p.m., 1:00 a.m., and 11:00 a.m. GMT, which were simultaneously broadcast with time zone considerations for virtual audiences watching in Europe and Africa, the Americas, and Asia and Australia, respectively. The venue’s rounded central stage was packed to the edges with an array of gear and sound equipment that promised a more elaborate set than the relatively spare setup for their surprise debut at the Glastonbury Fes...
Maybe It’s a Bad Thing That The Book of Boba Fett’s Fifth Episode Was So Good
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett, “Chapter 5: Return of the Mandalorian.”] This week’s episode of The Book of Boba Fett delivered a hell of a twist: It wasn’t about Boba Fett. Instead, the Mandalorian spinoff went ahead and became an episode of The Mandalorian, bringing back everyone’s favorite Space Dad (Pedro Pascal) and catching us up with what he’s been up to since surrendering sweet young Baby Yoda Grogu to Luke Skywalker for Jedi training. “Chapter 5: Return of the Mandalorian” did eventually connect to the events of Boba Fett so far, but it served more value in reintroducing a character who perhaps we didn’t realize we missed so much. The system shock of Din’s return ended up highlighting what’s been missing from the series: An actual emotion...
Eddie Vedder Takes a Look Inside on the Compelling Earthling
“Are you ready for a bit of Echo Victor?” a reverberating Eddie Vedder announces at the top of his third solo album Earthling, invoking the radio alphabet code for “EV.” And all at once, it’s clear this is the Pearl Jam frontman’s 13-song transmission from beyond our world, our time, our lives, and our dimension. He is calling out into the universe with his own Voyager Golden Record to share what it is to be human here on our planet. Or is it nakedly in a dreamlike alternate timeline where the ‘90s are in the future, and everything all is a warm, analog avocado-and-harvest-gold rave-up visited by legends like Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Ringo Starr, and touched by love and loss equally? This is Major Tom beyond ground control, the man who fell from Earth. In the capsule out in the cosmic oc...
Damon Albarn Addresses Taylor Swift Comments at Career-Spanning Intimate L.A. Show
Say this much for Damon Albarn, the guy’s got a sense of humor. As he was winding down his 17-song, 75-minute set at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, he addressed the elephant in the room: his much-discussed comments about Taylor Swift. In case you missed it somehow, Albarn caused quite the stir by knocking Swift’s songwriting that lit social media on fire Monday following Swift’s harsh rebuke. Many of her friends and collaborators came to her defense, leading Albarn to swiftly issue an apology. The day will mostly be remembered for that Before closing with “Song 2,” Albarn addressed the firestorm he created. Joking that “before he cast me into the social media abyss,” Albarn said that Los Angeles Times‘ Mikael Wood asked him if he’d play “Song 2.” That he did, after saying tha...
Sundance Review: Meet Me in the Bathroom Is a Time Capsule of 2000s Indie Rock
This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The Pitch: Pitched between the doomsday-prepping of Y2K and the existential horror of 9/11, 2000s New York was also home to another seismic change in American culture: the burgeoning indie-rock scene, where dingy clubs on the Lower East Side played home to acts like Interpol, The Strokes, The Moldy Peaches, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. That’s the hazy, deafening, beer-sticky stage on which Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace (who previously directed the LCD Soundsystem doc Shut Up and Play the Hits) operate for Meet Me in the Bathroom, less an adaptation of Lizzy Goodman’s 2017 oral history of the same name than a living companion piece. Related Video Comprised almost entirely of archival footage stitched together b...
