http://www.sho.com/site/secretdiary/
It's debatable how long a serial with so few recurring characters exploring the romanticized mysteries of what is essentially a dead-end job can maintain its delicate night-bloom charms, but this Showtime import (happily London-based with nary a whiff of the network's usual Canada-for-wherever substitutions) is watchable thus far. And for all the typical premium-cable come-ons about pseudo-hardcore hanky-panky, at this point boringly numerous and inevitable, the actual onscreen couplings are handled with an almost novel absence of exploitation. The mystique of illicit, moodily lit, soft-focus sex, and the obligatorily arch, worldly observations designed to puncture it, tend to come with a built-in expiration date; but for now, in twenty-minute segments, they feel comparatively fresh and inviting.
http://us.imdb.com/Title?WALL%B7E+(2008)
Arguably the truest example of "pure cinema" I've seen in my adult life. That it manages to be completely accessible, completely engaging, never boring, never cold, is as much a testament to the sophistication of its technical and artistic underpinnings as it is to the timeless virtues of this simplest of love stories. It's a miracle that events set against environmental apocalypse, the vacuum of space and the pristine surfaces of an automated post-consumer hyperstructure can support an adventure with this much character and, yes, heart. It's almost beside the point that the film is typically Pixar-packed with clever details and encyclopedic references: when its corroded-metal hero and and sleek polymer heroine come together, cooing each other's names in simple, adoring electronic tones, the whole knowing universe falls away. Grade: A
http://us.imdb.com/Title?Wanted+(2008)
The director may be Russian, the star may be British, but there's something completely American about everyone's favorite Ayn Rand-reading tattoo aficionado Angelina Jolie firing a gat. Fight Club's dark humor collides with the Wachowski Brothers school of cartoon physics in an agreeably frenetic (but never out of control) shoot-em-up about self-improvement through panic attacks and exploding rats. Just watch out for those moral boomerangs. Grade: B
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=276908912&id=276908846&s=143441
Artist: Carolina Liar. Album: Coming To Terms.
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=17243469&id=17243495&s=143441
Artist: Komeda. Album: What Makes It Go?
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=260405377&id=260405279&s=143441
Artist: Joanna. Album: Bratz (Motion Picture Soundtrack). [Editor's note: See, à la carte music downloads are wonderful because they allow me to enjoy this unexpectedly decent pop confection from the—urp; I'm trying not to vomit—otherwise risible Bratz movie soundtrack without having to surrender completely to consumer self-loathing.]
http://www.amazon.com/Pixar-Touch-Making-Company/dp/0307265757
Having read a reasonable number of Apple and Disney corporate histories over the years, I found myself largely familiar with author David A. Price's documentation of Pixar's story-so-far, given the digital animation studio's longstanding residence at the intersection of the aforementioned companies' millennial trajectories. This familiarity lends a warmed-over air to Price's account, an impression exacerbated by the obvious fact that the author didn't have direct access to most of the story's major players: much of the text reads as if it were culled secondhand, albeit skillfully, from readily available sources of business journalism and various internet clearinghouses. In some instances, Price will allude to seemingly interesting episodes in the Disney-Pixar-Apple narrative without elaboration—whereupon a simple Googling by the reader of the pertinent terms will yield comparatively more colorful and informative rundowns. The lack of intimate insight into the workings of Pixar also results in a portrait of its principal functionaries that occasionally deviates from the established public-relations depiction of a creative utopia—hinting at intriguing patterns of ego and pettiness—but subsequently fails to build on those glimpses. The absence of any real inside dish is most glaring in light of the book's release having obviously been timed to benefit from the marketing ramp-up to Disney-Pixar's Wall•E, which Price makes no reference to whatsoever. To be fair, unlike a lot of his Disney-Pixar-Apple-chronicling peers, Price seems to have a genuine fondness for and familiarity with the companies' products, which comes across in the ease and accuracy with which he tackles the relevant technicalities and business machinations. It's just a shame the end result is so flatly rendered.
http://us.imdb.com/Title?Get+Smart+(2008)
Remember that episode of The Office where Michael Scott wrote a screenplay for a thriller entitled Threat Level: Midnight, envisioning himself as the star? Get Smart is basically that movie, only with Anne Hathaway instead of Catherine Zeta-Jones. Grade: B-
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=279526702&id=279526522&s=143441
Artist: British Sea Power. Album: Do You Like Rock Music?
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=278409112&id=278408929&s=143441
Artist: Eef Barzelay. Album: Lose Big.
http://us.imdb.com/Title?Incredible+Hulk,+The+(2008)
Hiring lettered Hollywood superego Ed Norton to portray the quintessential Marvel Comics id is what's known as interesting casting—and it basically works, although the role doesn't necessarily demand much from the polyvariously skilled thespian. In a sense, director Louis Leterrier and screenwriter Zak Penn have fashioned a leaner, meaner take on the growly green giant that is itself all id. Whereas Ang Lee's 2003 reimagining was well-meaning but misbegotten—pensive and painterly in its approach to a genre that thrives on quick cuts and broad strokes—the now-Incredible Hulk is almost entirely delivered via second-act set pieces and minimal fussy character development or internal conflict. And while Lee practically oozed disdain for his source material with his highfalutin Shakespearian flourishes and Freudian obsessions, Leterrier dispenses his bumps and jolts with workmanlike efficiency—pausing occasionally to pay sly respect to the franchise's forbears. There isn't much in the way of depth or nuance to this do-over, but it also manages not to be boring or overtly preposterous for nearly two hours—which is a qualified success in its own right. (PS. Bruce Banner? The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants called. They want their Mom Jeans back.) Grade: B
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=279703753&id=279703740&s=143441
Artist: Regina Spektor. Album: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack).
http://us.imdb.com/Title?Chronicles+of+Narnia:+Prince+Caspian,+The+(2008)
I think a more truthful subtitle might have been, Jesus Fuck, Will Aslan Just Show Up Already? The absence of the lion king from much of the plot's machinations (spoiler: he spends most of the tale hiding offscreen in the forest like a ... well, like a huge pussy) is a buzzkill, and establishes this second entry in the wannabe-epic Narnia franchise as the "war movie" of the bunch—deliberately devoid of the earlier film's sporadic enchantments, offering day-for-night palace intrigue in their stead. It's worth noting that the sequel retains its predecessor's general ABC Family hokiness, so that aforesaid sequences of faux-dark plotting and scheming frequently register as a Golan-Globus gloss on Shekhar Kapur's Elizabethan England. That's the other thing about Caspian: it inexplicably looks cheaper than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The computer-generated flora and fauna are blurrier, the battlements rubberier, the acting more wooden. Well, that last quibble isn't really a technical shortcoming, although it's difficult to apply the word "artistic" to Ben Barnes' performance as the titular liege, even when describing its utter failure thereof. The actor's limited emotional range and hammy pan-European accent make it unclear whether he's dueling to reclaim his throne or merely auditioning to be Paris Hilton's next fiancé. Even a tantalizing non-canonical appearance by Tilda Swinton's White Witch fails to enliven the proceedings. The plain fact of this installment is that the marginal source material has been so overburdened by the demands of summer blockbuster warfare that the story's human elements, and indeed the likable young quartet at its center, become completely lost amidst the listless, relentless and interchangeable scenes of pixelated battle. Next time, less action, more acting please. Grade: C+
http://us.imdb.com/Title?You+Don't+Mess+with+the+Zohan+(2008)
Sunny absurdism, replete with an assist from the peerless Robert Smigel, elevates this Adam Sandler vehicle beyond the usual bland ambitions of his oeuvre, although the star's typical perfunctory storytelling rhythms ultimately bring the production back down to earth. A cheerful, if overlong, exercise in Borat lite. Grade: B-
http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Days-Novel-Ed-Park/dp/0812978579
Ed Park's contribution to the office lit genre invites comparison to Max Barry's Company as well as Joshua Ferris' Then We Came To the End—sharing the former's mind-fuck-as-occupational-hazard anxieties and the latter's distinctive use of the first person plural narrative voice in its early goings. With respect to quality, it falls between the two—head and shoulders above Barry in terms of the polish of its prose and the sophistication of its observations but not entirely sustaining Ferris' fit and finish. Park strikes out on his own in the novel's stream-of-consciousness finale, achieving an almost noirish tone that's simultaneously gripping and just a bit heartbreaking.