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Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is the most comic book-y comic book movie I’ve ever seen. Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) uses every trick in the book to make the screen come alive with BOOM! POW! WHAM! awesomeness.

Few moments in film this year have packed the exhilarating punch of the scenes where bassist Scott Pilgrim and his band mates tear into some garage band grunge and the room literally quivers with visible electricity.

Wright is working with an audio-visual palette that feels brand-new and award-worthy. It’s not often I watch a film that seems like the first of its kind, but this one does.

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Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Mojo

Some artists bounce back and forth between solo albums and albums with “the band,” and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. You can usually, but not always, tell when Bruce Springsteen is on his own or backed with the E-Street Band. Elvis Costello’s albums sound pretty much the same whether or not he credits The Attractions (or The Impostors) or headlines his albums himself.

Tom Petty with or without The Heartbreakers has always struck me as pretty much the same thing. Quick, Into the Great Wide Open… solo or Heartbreakers? Southern Accents? Full Moon Fever? Highway Companion? Wildflowers? The first two were Heartbreakers albums, the rest solo. But the style on all of them is pretty much interchangeable (not least because Petty tends to use the same musicians even when he goes “solo”).

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Song of the Day #783: ‘If You See Her, Say Hello (Demo)’ – Bob Dylan

For me, the biggest highlight of Volumes 1-3 of Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series are the New York versions of a few Blood On the Tracks songs.

As the story goes, Dylan recorded the whole album in New York then decided at the last minute that he wasn’t happy with some of the tracks and laid down new versions in Minneapolis. Those Minneapolis recordings are the songs we all know and love from the finished album.

But the New York tracks, largely acoustic versions of such classics as ‘Tangled Up in Blue,’ ‘Idiot Wind,’ ‘You’re a Big Girl Now’ and Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts,’ are equally revelatory. In fact, on the whole I think I prefer those original versions to the songs on the official release.

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Song of the Day #782: ‘Gold Digger’ – Matthew Morrison and Glee Cast

Top Ten ‘Glee’ Performances
#8 – ‘Gold Digger’ – Mr. Shu and Cast

I have a powerful crush on Lea Michele. I find her far more alluring than any of the more traditionally hot cheerleaders on Glee. But my feelings pale in comparison to my wife’s drool-fest over Matthew Morrison.

I notice that many of the shows we’ve enjoyed together have had a similar his-and-her appeal. From David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in The X-Files to Michael Vartan and Jennifer Garner in Alias. Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton in Friday Night Lights are another great example.

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Sarah McLachlan – Laws of Illusion

“Here I go again,” Sarah McLachlan sings in the opening lines of ‘Illusions of Bliss,’ the second track on her latest album, Laws of Illusion.

And even that early in the album, those words ring unfortunately true. She’s singing about returning to an ill-fated romance, but she may as well be referring to her increasingly tired brand of ethereal pop rock.

McLachlan seemed unstoppable after the back-to-back mid-90s smashes Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Surfacing. Songs such as ‘Possession,’ ‘Good Enough,’ ‘Sweet Surrender’ and ‘Building a Mystery’ tapped into a seductive mid-tempo vibe that was complemented perfectly by her sweetly yearning vocals. Those albums are classics not just because of their rich sound but the solid songwriting of McLachlan and Pierre Marchand.

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