Blogcritics Author: Jeff Martin

DVD Review: Ratatouille

Jeff Martin — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:52:29 EST

It's the same old story: Pixar just can't stop delivering stellar movies.
Since the debut of Toy Story more than a decade ago, few tunes have become as familiar as the song of praise so often directed toward the formidable team known as Disney/Pixar, and for good reason. Few studios have been as consistently innovative, in animation and in storytelling, as this now legendary pairing. Pixar seems to bring a sweet...

DVD Review: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - The Complete Series

Jeff Martin — Sun, 4 Nov 2007 19:14:52 EST

Great show, mediocre DVD: Sorkin's masterful series is ready to join your DVD shelf, if you can get it out of your player.
It's hard, really, to feel bad for Aaron Sorkin. After the runaway success of The West Wing and the critical embrace of the pilot episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the series' failure could easily be shrugged off. But for so many fans of Studio 60, its departure from the airwaves marked a significant downturn in the amount of...

Music Review: The Trolleyvox - Your Secret Safe / Luzerne

Jeff Martin — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 07:17:24 EDT

Philly-based indie rockers take a new direction; the music's just as good.
As the world of indie pop continues to elevate around the heads of the Philadelphia-based power pop set The Trolleyvox, one can only hope their number comes up one of these days. Consistent providers of solid music since the turn of the millennium, the 'vox are a band you can't help but become a fan of after listening to one of their...

Comedy Review: Mike Birbiglia - My Secret Public Journal Live

Jeff Martin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:30:14 EDT

Brigglesby, Bahooski...call him what you want; all Mike Birbiglia cares about is making you laugh.
Reading the product description of Mike Birbiglia's new album, My Secret Public Journal Live, you get the sense that his tongue-in-cheek, sarcastically self-deprecating style has carried over to his publicist. Though he's described as "one of the nation's most beloved comedians," Birbiglia never really came up on my radar...

Music Review: Colbie Caillat - Coco

Jeff Martin — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:35:55 EDT

Let the warm breeze blow and the fruity rum flow; Colbie Caillat is here to extend your summer.
Of all the ways to sample new music on the Internet, perhaps the biggest crap shoot is iTunes' "Free Single of the Week" feature. The weekly sampling of a new artist can range from straightforward pop to indie rock to hardcore metal. When I first downloaded Colbie Caillat's "Bubbly," then, I was apprehensive. It...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Music Review: Matt Nathanson - Some Mad Hope

Jeff Martin — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:00:30 EDT

Matt Nathanson is something of a paradox. He's a serial jokester who writes intensely touching songs. He's a radio-ready pop star who seems content having spent ten years under the radar. And while some might suggest that he "sold out" when releasing the robustly produced 2003 album Beneath These Fireworks (which didn't really sell, per se); true to this dual nature, his sound benefited from the move.On his second major-label release, Some Mad Hope, Nathanson once again puts a fresh spin on the role of the archetypal pop rocker. As he once quipped in concert, his songs are about a bad relationship here, a bad relationship there, sex every so often, and a bad relationship thrown in for good measure. He packs the album with that same emotional weight. In the opener and first single, "Car Crash," he readies himself to put everything on the line but welcomes the hit he'll take for it. "Wedding Dress," a song made beautiful by the simplicity of the acoustic guitar that backs the verses, confronts the enduring love of a marriage with perpetual jealousy and discomfort towards commitment.Though he is rightfully extolled for his solo concerts, Nathanson shines when backed by a full band. The second most radio-ready song on the album is "To the Beat of Our Noisy Hearts," a driving, singable song that begs to be a summer anthem. "Detroit Waves" is electric, calling you to bring the radio up to 11, roll the windows down, and very likely disobey the speed limit. Likewise, "Gone," presented as an unedited live in-studio recording, will not disappoint. In more intimate moments – "Come on Get Higher" and the album's closing tracks, "Sooner Surrender" and "All We Are" - Nathanson's often breathy tenor deftly leaps from full voice to falsetto, painting nicely over more muted instruments.For anyone who has followed Nathanson for any period of time extending before the day when "Car Crash" hits radios early next week and the release of this album on August 14, asking whether Some Mad Hope is his best album is like asking to choose a favorite child. I found myself listening to Beneath These Fireworks after a few weeks of listening to Some Mad Hope nonstop, and I feel like the former is a stronger album beginning to end, even though the latter has better individual songs.Nonetheless, Nathanson has offered an album so solid, so addicting, so enduring on repeat listens that will quickly become the soundtrack of your late summer. Whether you're cleaning around the house or lying on the beach, ending a relationship or pining over new love, Some Mad Hope will stay with you.Rating:

Jeff Martin is the online journalist behind Movie Hawk, a pop culture review. By day, he's a writer for the public relations office at a prominent university in Philadelphia.

DVD Review: Scrubs - The Complete Fifth Season

Jeff Martin — Tue, 5 Jun 2007 13:45:56 EDT

There's a great big empty hole in my life. Or at least my Thursday nights. Scrubs wrapped up its sixth (and we presume penultimate) season a few weeks ago with one of the sweetest moments in the show's run, and I have an intense yearning to quickly see my friends at Sacred Heart again and find out what happens to them next.The latter part of that request won't be possible until sometime this fall, but I can always rely on my trusty DVD player to let me peek in on TV's wackiest – and, if the special features are to be believed, most realistic – doctors. Enter Scrubs – The Complete Fifth Season.I first got into Scrubs just before the beginning of the sixth season by watching DVDs, and I discovered that it's a perfect show for the format. You can easily devour half a dozen episodes without leaving your chair, and only when it comes time to change the disc do you realize you haven't moved in three hours. As the seasons have progressed, that characteristic has only grown as the show has folded more and more engaging drama in with its unique brand of razor-sharp, lightning-quick wit.The fifth season of Scrubs features some of the series' finest dramatic work, none better than a three-episode arc set up for Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley): "My Lunch," "My Fallen Idol," and "My Déjà Vu, My Déjà Vu." The heartbreaking final scenes of the first, set to The Fray's now-overplayed "How to Save a Life," are perfectly offset by McGinley's silent mourning in the second and third.Of course, the comedy here is also top-notch. Mandy Moore joins the cast mid-season as a new love interest for J.D. (Zach Braff) and proves herself a surprisingly deft comedienne; Turk (Donald Faison) fronts an air band with the Todd (Rob Maschio), Janitor (Neil Flynn), and Ted (Sam Lloyd); the Todd confronts his sexuality -- the sidesplitting moments come at you from all angles.The centerpiece of the DVD set is the celebration of the series' 100th episode, "My Way Home," an ingenious homage to The Wizard of Oz directed by Braff. In addition to the sequential, 22-minute episode on the disc, you get to see an extended cut with optional commentary by Braff. Alone in the studio, there isn't much for Braff to do in the commentary, but it provides some nice insights all the same.With deleted scenes and alternate takes for almost every episode that highlight the impressive comedic chops and improvisational skills that the cast has, this set is a great addition to any collection. Sure, Scrubs is now shown in syndication, but the DVD is a must for any fan so devoted that they pumped their fist upon hearing that NBC renewed the show for its seventh season.

Jeff Martin is the online journalist behind Movie Hawk, a pop culture review. By day, he's a writer for the public relations office at a prominent university in Philadelphia.

Music Review: Ben Kweller - Ben Kweller

Jeff Martin — Fri, 18 May 2007 13:29:16 EDT

When he first burst onto the music scene as the teenaged frontman of the grunge band Radish, Ben Kweller was all sizzle and no steak. Adored by creative teams at record labels, Radish never caught on commercially, and Kweller broke away from the band at the age of 19 to start a solo career. In his most recent album, a self-titled effort, Kweller finally seems to have settled as a songwriter, reflecting on his erstwhile music ventures and the rediscovery of young love.The album beings with "Run," a track with Springsteen-esque percussion, guitars, and lyrics. Kweller laments his scattershot career but says that a girl has helped make it worthwhile: "Since fifteen, I have ran / Everywhere you can run / But with you, it's much more fun / So let's run." He echoes the theme on "I Gotta Move" and "Penny on the Train Track," the latter a wonderfully paced track that makes it feel like a train is bearing down on the end of the song.It seems a bit disingenuous that Kweller feels this kind of restlessness at such a young age and after some modest successes, but again on "Run," he asserts that the best is yet to come for him, singing "I'm not done with my traveling / So let's run."The focal point of the album is "Thirteen," made so by its placement at the dead center of the album and the unusual, chorus-free arrangement. Again, if this is Kweller's Born to Run, this is his "Thunder Road," and not just because of the eerie harmonica solo between two verses. It's a masterful piece of storytelling. "It was in the back of a taxi /When you told me you loved me / And that I wasn't alone," the song ends.Kweller sprinkles the album with some simple pop numbers, notably the sunny "Sundress." The somewhat lazy "Magic" is not one of his better songwriting efforts and really marks the point in the album where Kweller starts to run out of momentum. "Red Eye" has one great lyric in it -- "How long will it take / 'Til I can have your heart to break?" -- but is nothing compared to the top half of the album.Ben Kweller combines the better aspects of each of the songwriter's previous two releases: the fun pop sound of Sha Sha and the maturity of On My Way. He still hasn't found his perfect album yet, but by looking back, he should recognize that he's closer than he might imagine.

Jeff Martin is the online journalist behind Movie Hawk, a pop culture review. By day, he's a writer for the public relations office at a prominent university in Philadelphia.

Movie Review: Music and Lyrics

Jeff Martin — Fri, 18 May 2007 12:26:57 EDT

Hugh Grant may be best known for his shtick of being "charmingly befuddled," as noted in a particularly memorable side gag on Family Guy, but after watching a handful of his movies, you begin to realize something about the Brit: his characters are so often sculpted from the same mold, but his willingness to be a self-deprecating, self-involved jerk keeps the clay from hardening into a boring lump. If you don't quite understand what I mean, check out American Dreamz and take special note of how Grant, playing the same character he has played since Bridget Jones' Diary, is the only tolerable part of the movie.In Music and Lyrics, Grant plays Alex Fletcher, the washed-up half of an '80s group called PoP. His singing partner left to pursue a solo career, and Alex was left without someone to craft lyrics to his compositions. He spends most of his time performing PoP's greatest hits solo at amusement parks, mall, and craft fairs, and the rest trying to deflect the "has been" label by making a joke of himself before anyone else can. Challenged to write a chart-topping hit for a young popster (Haley Bennett as Cora), Alex can only come up with music but connects with a goofy young girl (Drew Barrymore as Sophie Fisher) with a hidden talent for poetry.Grant and Barrymore play off each other well, as the process of writing a hit song becomes a metaphor for the ups and downs of their relationship. Both have their vulnerabilities, but their focus on making tolerable music allows them to ignore it. The pacing of the movie does the relationship no favors, though, as the best scenes for them to connect are thrust early into the plot, before they're comfortable enough to do anything about it. Normally, this would create a nice tension; here, it seems more frustrating that nobody thought to up the romantic ante in the scenes.The film balances the fizzling opportunities for chemistry with some decent comedy, coming largely from Grant and Barrymore but with surprising stealth by Bennett and Brad Garrett, playing Alex's agent. Bennett, in particular, plays Cora as a spacey, airheaded pop princess who likes to feel smarter by practicing Eastern religions.Even though we've seen both of the lead actors in similar roles - Grant in everything and Barrymore in The Wedding Singer - Music and Lyrics holds its own as a harmless romantic comedy. Like the song that Alex and Sophie come up with, the movie will be forgotten soon after it ends, but it provides a fair amount of sweetness and laughter while you're watching it.

Jeff Martin is the online journalist behind Movie Hawk, a pop culture review. By day, he's a writer for the public relations office at a prominent university in Philadelphia.

Music Review: They Might Be Giants - The Else

Jeff Martin — Mon, 14 May 2007 14:31:01 EDT

As a reviewer, I've never felt dwarfed by a band whose album I was about to critique. From Springsteen to the Shins, I've always been able to take a step back and listen to the music without feeling an attachment to the artist. But when They Might Be Giants' new album, The Else, arrived in my mailbox and made its way to my car stereo, I suddenly became nervous. It's not that I have any great affinity for this band that has been making music since the year I was born – one of my closest friends is a rabid fan girl, but I only have an attachment to a mix CD of their work that she made me. It's just that their fan base is such a unique niche and their oeuvre is so cemented in the pop culture landscape after 25 years that it doesn't feel like what I'm about to say is even going to matter. But, because I'm something that resembles a professional, I'm going to say it anyway.The Else isn't very good.It starts out promising, with the catchy "I'm Impressed," an up-tempo, vaguely political song about following an unnamed primate of a leader. Following that is "Take Out the Trash," a grungy plea for a girl to dump her lazy lothario of a boyfriend. The song doesn't seem to plead for this woman to date either of the Johns that make up TMBG, but it has a winsome charm that's appealing.You might imagine the song quality on The Else as a reverse bell curve, because after the first two tracks, the good quickly drops out. The band is known for its lyrical silliness, but their better songs have a good, discernable message beneath it all. From "Upside Down Frown" to "Careful What You Pack" and "Bee of the Bird of the Moth," though, the Giants come up remarkably small, their instrumentation clangy and lyrics too enigmatic to even be bothered with. It feels neither innovative nor very much fun. A few departures from the quality of the earlier cuts might be forgivable, but the weakness here is consecutive and takes up more than half the length of the album.The curve turns upward again, if only briefly, with "Withered Hope," which makes great use of horns, electric bass, and drums to create chaos among some fine lyrics. "Contrecoup," meanwhile, is the finest song on the album, with an addictive acoustic hook leading into a sweet story about a brain injury patient whose concussions force him into obsession with his caretaker. After another mistake in "Feign Amnesia," the album ends on a plateaued middle ground, with "The Mesopotamians," a Monkees-like song about an unknown band that isn't great but difficult to dislike (the song, not the band, though I imagine that's the sentiment anyway).Several years ago, I tried to argue with my fan girl friend that TMBG as a band was no good, but she convinced me otherwise with the mixed CD of songs that she knew I'd like. There are a few songs on this collection that join that distinction, but the album's faults outweigh its virtues, and I'm afraid that, when I go to my digital collection of TMBG songs, I'll bypass this CD and look for, well, something else.

Jeff Martin is the online journalist behind Movie Hawk, a pop culture review. By day, he's a writer for the public relations office at a prominent university in Philadelphia.