Sunday, June 19, 2011

A barrage of reviews of sundry things

Edge of Glory music video – I like it. I wasn’t a huge fan of Judas, but Born This Way actually grew on me. I think it was a wise step for Lady Gaga to dial back the crazy for a minute, and this is the pleasant result.

Born This Way album – I’m not feeling it so much. I think that I rely on Lady Gaga’s visuals to make her fully enjoyable. To some extent this is true for all female vocalists, but doubly so for Gaga. The songs are fine, but the presentation is the important thing.

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues – Their first album didn’t wow me, but I like this one more. I have to be in the mood, but when I am, it hits the spot.



Submarine – I thought this movie was the bee’s knees. I missed a special preview because I was on call, so was glad that it returned to the local art theater. I think the director is hilarious (Richard Ayoade, Moss from I.T. Crowd) so I was interested to see if a hilarious person would direct a hilarious movie. Hilarious is the wrong word, as it’s a dramedy, but it was quite funny. It’s a borrows a fair bit from Harold and Maude, Rushmore, Garden State, Napoleon Dynamite and various other quirk-classics, but these are good sources to borrow from. All in all, very enjoyable.



The Wise Man’s Fear – Patrick Rothfuss. This book was a page-turner in it’s own right, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the first book in the trilogy. It felt overly long, often getting bogged down on side trips that were enjoyable, but felt like they were treading water. So good, but not great.

True Blood – Season 2. Not as good as season 1, but still fairly addictive.

Bob’s Burgers – it’s a cartoon sitcom, so I’m automatically on board. H. Jon Benjamin is good, as always. But what really makes the show are Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal as his kids. Sometimes I couldn’t even tell why it was funny, it just was.

1 comment:

anna. said...

i like the edge of glory. the video is fine (just because it's not insane doesn't mean it's not good) and the music is very chill -- kinda like an 80's throwback. can you beat a sax solo? wonder if she had that first or if katy perry did...