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Arts & Entertainment

Albums

Michael McDermott Ashes For all the Jersey folk out there, there's been a change in tides.

by 34TH STREET

Tarantino on my mind

Kill Bill Vol. 2 is such a hairpin turn away from the amusing but disappointing first chapter of Quentin Tarantino's epic that unsuspecting moviegoers can almost be forgiven for the knee-jerk negative response it is sure to elicit.

by EUGENE NOVIKOV

Editors' picks

Tami Fertig: Arab Strap Cherubs Imagine this: a sweet and simple guitar melody floating lazily atop the slow and steady beat of a drum machine -- over and over and over again.

by 34TH STREET

Reviews

The Whole Ten Yards Starring Bruce Willis, Matthew PerryDirected by Howard DeutchRated PG-13 Every time I try to say something substantive about The Whole Ten Yards, the only thing that can come out of my mouth are variations on "it was a pile of crap." Director Howard Deutch gives us a barrage of ethnic jokes, repeated slapping and Matthew Perry waving his arms around and falling down, and leaves it up to the marketing department to make the movie seem funny.

by 34TH STREET

Albums

Ben Kweller On My Way Ben Kweller wrote his first album during puberty, lived his adolescence in a recording studio and now, at 22, professes to know life's transcendental truths.

by 34TH STREET

Dangerous Minds, Etc.

And yet another trainwreck for Kevin Spacey. In the tradition of perfectly respectable actors taking a step or 10 in the wrong direction, our man Kev follows K-Pax, Pay it Forward and The Life of David Gale with further punishment for unsuspecting moviegoers in the heartbreakingly vapid The United States of Leland. Spacey knows it's a bust and can't even show his face; on the movie poster, the man labeled as Kevin Spacey is not in fact Kevin Spacey, but the lesser known actor Martin Donovan -- who spends the entire movie making a big stink just because someone up and knifed his autistic son.

by NICKIE HUANG

Split Kicks and bobbing heads

There are very few opportunities -- unless you are showering with them -- to hear a bassist singing.

by EUGENIA SALVO

Texas isn't just Bush country

San Antonio, TX. The Alamo story has graced film reels more than a dozen times. It's Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and Colonel Travis: add a few more ingredients, stir and repeat.

by JAMES SCHNEIDER

Coheed my call and listen to this band

Coheed and Cambria is "progressive rock, definitely not run-of-the-mill." Occasionally lumped into emo, or emo-core, the group's rock stylings are comparable to those of close friends and frequent tourmates, Thursday and Thrice.

by JAMES SCHNEIDER

Online Extra: Michael Franti and Spearhead/Ziggy Marley concert review

The Electric Factory is plastered with red, gold and green posters that invoke the spirit of peace, tolerance and reggae music.

by 34TH STREET

Online Extra: Simple Plan concert review

As it is at any concert featuring a band that has recently been on Total Request Live, the average age of those attending the Simple Plan show couldn't have been over 16, and that's including the small upstairs 21-and-over bar area.

by 34TH STREET

Online Extra: Broken Social Scene concert review

For their third visit to Philadelphia, Broken Social Scene invited their brass section (members of Stars, the night's opening act) on stage for a sultry night of indie rock.

by 34TH STREET

Albums

Lou Reed Animal Serenade Warner Brothers Lou Reed's 5,000th live album, Animal Serenade, shows that the 62-year-old legend can still put on a great show.

by 34TH STREET

Conspiracy theories

Jazz has long subsisted as an underground music -- an esoteric, impervious art form sheltered from consumer politics.

by JON LEVIN

Go directly to Hell

There are things out there that go bump in the night," quips Professor Bruttenholm (John Hurt). "We are the ones who bump back." No, this isn't your average weekend-drunken-sorority-girl- hook-up; it's Guillermo del Toro's above average comic-to-movie film Hellboy. Mix two parts X-Men, two parts Men In Black technology and a sprinkle of The Hulk's big buff looks, and you have the recipe that not only looks good but doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth. Based on Mike Mignola's comic book series, Hellboy opens in 1944 as the Nazis, led by Grigori Rasputin, attempt to open a portal to another dimension.

by COREY HULSE

R-Rated Pornography

We're all relatively acquainted with the slew of coming-of-age teen comedies wherein implausibly attractive high school students overcome the bounds of social status, find love and provide a fortune cookie-sized moral to the tune of "Teenage Wasteland." The recipe works, though it usually makes for movies so saccharine that diabetics crumple to the floor of America's movie theaters.

by GERARD LEONE

What if we all did have flying bicycles?

Dave Scher wishes people would dance at shows like they used to. One half of the duo that makes up California-based All Night Radio, Scher remembers his upbringing in Long Beach, California as a time when people danced at shows.

by EUGENIA SALVO

The People's Interview

What happened last night [at Wrestlemania]? We got beat. I had a blast last night. It was a lot of fun, it was cool.

by JAMES SCHNEIDER

Editors' picks

Tami Fertig: The Magnetic Fields Get Lost Lest we forget, Magnetic Fields mastermind Stephin Merritt was making records long before 69 Love Songs. That one was okay, but c'mon.

by 34TH STREET

"When you get a little older, you get a little softer"

No, the problem child was and always will be Dogma. Nothing can be more problematic than that.

by LEAH COLINS

PennConnects

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