Album Review: Sonic Youth - The Eternal (2009)

For nearly twenty years, Sonic Youth released their albums for Geffen records, starting with the both over- and under-rated Goo. Now, during what can possibly be described as a "career renaissance," they've gone over to the powerful indie label Matador Records. This doesn't mean Sonic Youth is taking a step back away from the mainstream, as The Eternal is probably as mainstream, if not more so, than 2006's Rather Ripped.

Not that sounding more mainstream means Sonic Youth are even close to approaching anything you'd hear on Top 40 radio. The sound on The Eternal, however, does hark back to the dirtier guitar sound used on Goo and Dirty, when Sonic Youth first really started to get some slight mass attention. Unlike those albums, which were atonal monstrosities that, along with Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star, I still consider to be the nadir of Sonic Youth's career, the dirty guitar sound on The Eternal is used in conjunction with the new-found melodic tendencies that have been steadily growing in SY's work since 2002's Murray Street.

Unfortunately, this looking back to the past is precisely what Sonic Youth didn't need to do. Their last three albums (Murray Street, Sonic Nurse, and Rather Ripped) have all been great to varying degrees, mainly because Sonic Youth has found a way to continue their noise-rock tradition while still pushing things forward. On The Eternal, however, nothing seems new. Everything seems like "typical" Sonic Youth, something that could really never be said about past albums. Sure, some of their songs would sound similar across albums, but every album had at least a handful of songs that sounded unlike anything they had done in the past. On The Eternal, every single song reminds me of something from Sonic Youth's past.

The Eternal is not completely without merit, however. Both "Anti-Orgasm" and "Antenna" deconstruct into noise jams about halfway through, something that has always been a highlight of Sonic Youth's music. The duo of closers, "Walking Blue" and "Massage the History" are also very strong tracks, the second of which marks Sonic Youth's first over-nine-minute song since Murray Street, and is probably the strongest track on the entire album. Featuring a building mixture of acoustic and electric guitars, "Massage the History" is allowed to flow and evolve as it goes along, unlike the rest of the album, which sounds rushed and bored.

That brings us to the songs that don't work.  Tracks such as "Sacred Trickster" and "Calming the Snake" feature Kim Gordon at her most shrill, and her vocals alone make me want to skip the tracks almost as soon as the singing starts. "Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso)" and "What We Know," featuring vocals from all band members instead of just one like in most of their songs, are throw away tracks with no distinguished melody or direction, and are forgotten almost as soon as the next song starts.

If you really liked Goo and/or Dirty (I didn't), and would like to see what it would sound like if you threw them into a blender with Rather Ripped and Sonic Nurse (albums I loved), The Eternal is almost certain to appeal. Otherwise, it's probably the worst album Sonic Youth has recorded since Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star.

Rating: 6/10

Album Review: Taking Back Sunday - New Again (2009)

Once again, Taking Back Sunday has to record an album with a new guitarist/back-up vocalist after the departure of Fred Mascherino. Although markedly different from Taking Back Sunday's previous work, it still holds up as a solid album with a couple of inspired moments.

The first thing that jumps out from the album is the glossy production and the lack of "call-and-response" vocals. Although Louder Now toned down Mascherino's vocal responses to lead singer Adam Lazzara, prominent background vocals seem almost completely absent from New Again.

Granted, with the strength of some of the album's songs, it's really not a problem. Opener "New Again" features Lazzara at his angsty best, and gets the album off to a fairly strong start, and, in its way, addresses the issue of this album being a new direction for the band. "Sink Into Me," the second track and lead single, is a strong track that would probably be the album highlight if not for the overused "hey hey" vocals in the background during the bridge.

The quality dips off a little after the first two tracks, although nothing on the album is truly bad. "Summer, Man" is a a pseudo-ballad that only works during the verses and falls apart when the chorus hits. Ditto for "Where My Mouth Is." "Cut Me Up Jenny" feels like straightforward TBS, but the intensity with which Lazzara approaches the chorus allows the song to avoid being too stale.

The end of the album, however, regains much of the strength of the album's beginning. "Carpathia" easily could've been called "Catharsis," and captures an intensity that has been missing from TBS songs since Where You Want to Be before fading into "Everything Must Go," a song that abuses the quiet/loud dynamic more than anything else in TBS' catalog. Softly sung verses are bookended by either moments of guitar pounding or the blisteringly biting chorus, "Everything Must Go" is a definite contender for best song TBS has recorded since Where You Want to Be.

Although not able to capture the amazing energy of their first two albums, Taking Back Sunday are still very much around and show no signs of slowing down, even after another lineup change.

Rating: 7/10

Movie Review: Get Smart's Bruce & Lloyd: Out o Control (2008)

Talk about a mouthful of a title! Get Smart's Bruce & Lloyd: Out of Control (henceforth referred to simply as Bruce & Lloyd) is a sometimes funny, often stale comedy meant to capitalize on the success of the recent Get Smart remake.

Unfortunately, Get Smart was a mediocre comedy to begin with, and thus a throwaway side-project based on the movie was bound to not be mind-blowing. In fact, it's either a testament to Masi Oka and Nate Torrence (Bruce and Lloyd, respectively) or a condemnation of the screenwriters of the main film that Bruce & Lloyd manages to not be that much worse than Get Smart.

Bruce & Lloyd takes place during the same time-frame as Get Smart, but instead of focusing on Agents 99 and 86, it instead focuses on the tech-geeks who make all of the gadgets seen in the main film. Interesting enough idea, but the execution here is so painfully straightforward that it's only mildly enjoyable to watch.

From the start, it's easy to tell that the budget on this was minuscule compared to the $80 million budget that Get Smart had. At times, with the low quality cameras and random joke-cuts, I felt like I was watching a TV pilot rather than a straight-to-DVD film. Like filtering Scrubs through the original Get Smart by way of the Sci-fi channel, but managing to remove most of the laughs along the way.

Both Oka and Torrence do a serviceable acting job (Torrence is especially funny when his character is attempting to practice flirting with a receptionist), which is more than can be said for most of the supporting cast (Marika Dominczyk is especially wooden, with an accent that is so obviously forced that it provides more laughs than any of the jokes her character makes).

In addition, the story about corrupt politicians from "Maraguay," a fictional South American country, seems unnecessary to the film, even though it's the main plot. It's hard to really care about what's going on, and it's even harder to find out why all the political intrigue was added to the subplot when there's no payoff for it in the end.

For a marketing ploy, Bruce & Lloyd could've been a lot worse. Taken without that context, however, it just feels like a TV show that would be bumped after three episodes so more Dancing with the Stars could make it's way onto our TVs. Maybe if it had been made with a larger budget and without being looked at as a throw-away project, Bruce & Lloyd could've been good. Too bad that's not what happened.

Rating: 5/10

Movie Review: The International (2009)

Anticipation can do much to taint one's view of a movie. If you go in expecting something that will change your world, you'll be disappointed if it is merely great and not extraordinary, and thus you're left with an unfavorable view of an otherwise great film. Likewise, if you go in expecting a total shit-fest, and it ends up being mediocre, you'll be pleasantly surprised, and possibly end up with a similar view of the movie that you did for the great movie that you had high expectations for, even though one was obviously better than the other.

My initial reaction to The International is that it was boring, and that Clive Owen has done much, much better films. It was nothing like I expected it to be. Instead of being filled with tension-building intrigue and adrenaline-releasing shoot-outs, the movie ended up wading through watered-down political wrangling and a solitary action sequence (which, by the way, was easily the best part of the movie).

However, the movie really wasn't as bad as my initial reaction. The main acting was serviceable, with Clive Owen bringing more intensity to his role than the script really called for, and Naomi Watts trying her best to infuse life into her meager, one-dimensional lines. The supporting actors were nothing special, but no one really seemed to detract from their scenes (barring the hitman in the scene directly before the centerpiece gun-fight).

The biggest problem with the story is that it doesn't take any surprising turns. Everything happened about the way I expected, except for possibly the ending, which I'm still not sure if it was a neat little twist or a head-banging cop-out. Everything is by-the-numbers intrigue, which ends up being an oxymoron. In addition, the story takes a somewhat plausible concept (multinational corporations getting involved in political conflict) and throws in so many illogical situations that it becomes almost painful to watch at parts.

The shoot-out at the Guggenheim museum, however, almost makes up for the missteps along the way. With an abundance of circular levels and ramps, visual artwork, and glass, the most likely reasons the Guggenheim has never been used in an action movie before are either, A) it's too costly to create a replica of the museum that can be shot up (which is precisely what The International did) or B) most people think that mixing "art" and action movies just wouldn't work.

Although it saves The International from being a complete bore, the Guggenheim shoot-out doesn't save it from being a truly mediocre movie. Worst of all, the movie can't even take it's own advice. At one point, a character says, "The difference between fact and fiction? The fiction must be believable." Too bad screenwriter Eric Warren Singer didn't take his own advice when it came to the rest of the story.

Rating: 5/10

Movie Review: Up (2009)

Pixar is the undisputed leader in current animation. Although Dreamworks isn't too far behind, Pixar is able to combine amazing graphical work with stories that pop with life and sometimes even manage to tug at the heartstrings. Up is not only a work of superb animation, but is possibly one of the saddest/best movies to come out in years.

I'm not one to cry at movies. I can find something sad, but rarely does it actually elicit a physical reaction from me. Up took all of my strength to not start bawling, and that was just in the first fifteen minutes. In fact, I'm going to say that the first fifteen minutes of Up tug at the heartstrings better than just about any two-hour melodrama could possibly hope to do.

That's not to say the entire thing is one big teary-eyed sadsack. Up also serves up a large dose of humor, the best of which comes from Dug, the talking dog who is actually able to personify the ADD spirit of a canine companion exactly the way I would have imagined. Russell also has some funny lines, but nothing as funny as Dug.

The story would fall apart without Ed Asner's performance as Carl, however. Carl is a crotchety old man, and Asner does a good job of not drifting into senile parody. He's the perfect combination of sad, angry, and confused, and never becomes unbelievable.

Pixar has crafted what is truly a definitively "family" film...the whimsical animation and humor can appeal to everyone, young or old, and the story itself is able to be engaging while still being emotionally strong enough that adults won't get bored by all the silliness. The only negative things I can really say about Up is that the 3-D treatment felt unneccesary and added nothing to the movie past the first half hour. I know 3-D is all the rage right now, but it really was unneccesary for this movie and felt tacked on.

Rating: 9/10

The animated short Partly Cloudy, which appears before the film, is funny and sweet, if somewhat innocuous. Definitely worth a watch, although nothing as strong as the actual feature film.

Movie Review: The Hangover (2009)

Sometimes, a movie comes along that no one is expecting to be any good, and ends up taking the public by storm. Juno and Superbad did this two years ago. Back in 2005, The 40-Year-Old Virgin. This year, The Hangover is that movie, and it just might be the best of the bunch.

When I first saw the trailer for The Hangover, my first thoughts were, "Great, another Vegas movie." My second thought was, "Man, has Zach Galifianakis fallen so far that all he stars in are Vegas movies?" (I refused to see What Happens in Vegas, by the way. Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz are not exactly on the top of my "must see" list). A week before it's release, however, it started getting some buzz. For a movie with such a cliche premise, the critics were actually liking it. So, when a couple of my friends wanted to go to the midnight showing, I gave in and went with them.

The only word needed to describe this film is hilarious. Not all the way through, but in enough spots for the lasting impression of the movie to be, "Damn, that was hilarious!" Like most modern comedies, it starts to flounder towards the end, but for the first seventy or eighty minutes, The Hangover is a riotous film, and one that reinvents what can be done with a cliche premise.

Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms do serviceable in their roles as buddies to groom-to-be Justin Bartha, but the real star of the show here is Zach Galifianakis, the soon-to-be-brother-in-law with a couple of screws loose. Galifianakis plays his character with such naive conviction that almost everything he says is funny. Even ordinary comments are transformed by his delivery and turned from dialogue filler into comedic gold.

Some credit must also be given to director Todd Phillips and screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore for letting the comedy flow through the characters and to make the decision that the bachelor party itself need not be shown for the movie to be funny. That's not to say the movie is without flaws. Some of the supporting performances are stale/predictable (I'm looking at you, Heather Graham), and the credits slideshow is not probably as funny as it was intended to be and doesn't help overcome the fact that the movie runs out of steam before it finishes. However, compared to past works Old School (Phillips) and Four Christmases (Lucas & Moore), The Hangover is a humongous triumph, and a movie that will surely stick around as a comedy classic for years to come.

Rating: 8/10