New Shit Tuesday

New CDs:

After being spoiled by the one-per-week pace of cd releases over the past few months, this week is pretty tame. There isn't a single CD that I'm rushing out to buy, but there's plenty of stuff worth a listen:

Travis - The Boy With No Name - The aging Brit-pop band that never quite made it in America, Travis is still a decent band.

Elliott Smith - New Moon - Yet another "lost songs" album from Smith, who died years ago, officially making him the Tupac Shakur of indie rock.

New discs by The Clientele, Electrelane and The View - Basically a bunch of sink or swim discs that depend on personal taste.

Bjork - Volta - Well, Yoko Ono just released a disc a few weeks back, so short of having them together in the same room at the same time, this is the closest we'll get to having actual proof that they're not the same person.

VERDICT: Run away, quickly.

DVDs:

Again, a mediocre week for new DVDs. There aren't any I would personally buy, but aside from a slew of chick flicks there is one movie that's of great interest to me.


Deliver Us From Evil: This Academy Award nominated documentary examines the child molestation scandal within the Catholic Church and the cover-up within the church. The reviews say that it pulls no punches and gets right to the core of the issue by interviewing one of the head priests involved in the scandal.

VERDICT: Rent it ASAP.


The Painted Veil: Edward Norton is one of my favorite actors at the moment and while this period piece seems dull and uneventful, it's probably still worth a peek.

VERDICT: Rent it.


Fur: Word has it that this bio pic starring Nicole Kidman is just plain awful, but I'm still interested in seeing it.

VERDICT: Rent it.


Music and Lyrics, Because I Said So, Catch And Release - And here we have the three movie estrogen dump of the week. Each movie has maybe one thing going for it (respectively Hugh Grant, Lauren Graham and Kevin Smith), but that's not nearly enough to recommend any of them to anyone with taste similar to mine.

VERDICT: Avoid it.


Well, there you have it... In a word: Mediocre. Hopefully, next week will be better.