Reviews:music, game & film
MUSIC
Sufjan Stevens
Come on Feel the Illinoise
With a name like Sufjan Stevens, this singer-songwriter instrumentalist is bound to turn some heads. Add in a conceptual album based on the state of Illinois, and he's sure to get attention. Come on Feel the Illinois! is Stevens' second album in an attempt to create a collection of albums about each of the 50 states. Michigan, his home state, was the first.
Illinoise! is truly artistic from all points of view. The slip cover is coated with images specific to the state
including the Chicago skyline, Superman and Abraham Lincoln. Play the CD and you'll find it to be an imaginative blend. Stevens plays and layers over 20 instruments for the album. He includes everything from banjos to xylophones to piccolos, creating an overall sound reminiscent of The Polyphonic Spree.
Illinoise! has the happiness of The Flaming Lips' while mirroring Neil Young with banjo-heavy songs like "Jacksonville." If you like iron and Wine frontman Sam Beam's voice, Sufjan Stevens should be right up your alley. It has just enough of that dusty quality to complement his contemplative lyrics. And contemplative they are, as he
asks, "What have we become, America?" in "Part I: 'The Great Frontier'..." Rarely will you find an album so well researched: the songs immortalize Polish Chicagooan Casimir Pulaski, Chicago serial-killer John Wayne Gacy Jr., the UFO sighting near Highland and many other interesting subjects specific to Illinois.
Seven instrumentals are interspersed between the lyricized songs, giving variety to the listening experience.
Simply put, this is one of the most original albums you will hear this year.
Sufjan Stevens is playing at the Bottleneck Sept. 21.
-Kelsey Coon
Limbeck
Let Me Come Home ☆☆
Limbeck's previous album, Hi Everything's Great, was a great album. The album, which tells stories of driving around America, does so with a strong alt-country rock feel reminiscent of Ryan Adams and is the perfect soundtrack for any road trip.
Unfortunately, the band's follow-up Let Me Come Home, essentially repeats their previous effort. Most of the songs
The production level is sub-par on the band's second album, having chosen to record live at Flowers Studio in Minneapolis, a decision that possibly should be rethought.
stick to the same formula of upbeat tempos and sharing stories of the road. Some of the songs are spiced up with added instrumentals, from piano, mandolin and even an accordion. It does little to enhance the repetitive style throughout the album though.
The most interesting track on the album is "I Saw You Laughing," a slowed-
down song with some interesting percussion and country-style piano.
"Sin City" also stands out with its slower tempo, rising guitar chords and harmonica parts. "Making The Rounds" is also a good track, with its catchy background vocals and good use of acoustic and electric guitars.
Let Me Come Home has a few good tracks, but simply doesn't deliver the road trip fun that its predecessor does. So if you're looking for a good Limbeck album, go with Hi Everything's Great.
Chris Brower
GAME
Big Mutha Truckers 2:
Truck Me Harder
System: X-Box, PS2, Gamecube, PC
If bad game titles were a criminal offense, the team behind Big Mutha Truckers 2: Truck Me Harder would probably be facing capital punishment right about now. This lowly anticipated sequel to the former worst-titled game ever features the same lowbrow, blue-collar "humor" as the original and a title twice as dumb. Oh yeah, and the gameplay remains terrible.
Things kick off when Ma Jackson, the proprietor of the trucking company, Big Mutha Truckers, is thrown in jail for tax evasion. Elaborating on the story from here is pointless. I may as well detail the plotline of my last bathroom break.
In order to free Ma Jackson, players take control of one of four truckers and undergo a number of missions and delivery jobs to raise money. The controls are bad, the missions are idiotic and the gameplay itself is about as exciting as watching trees grow. In short, the game plays like a budget-titled Grand Theft Auto, minus the fun.
The list of complaints could go on for miles. If you value your brain cells, stay away from this game. It trucking sucks.
- Andrew Campbell
MOVIES
The Brothers Grimm PG-13, 118 minutes, South Wind 12 ★★★
Between the horses that swallow children, little mud men stealing a child's eyes and a kitten killed by whirring blades, I came to one conclusion about the The Brothers Grimm: director Terry Gilliam (12 Monkeys) is one sick bastard.
Matt Damon and Heath Ledger play brothers, Will and Jake Grimm, the future authors of every fairytale known to man. Now, this film could have run with that, exploring how the two men come to create some of the most famous stories in the world. But alas, Gilliam chooses to make the brothers into medieval Ghostbusters; the only difference is that they create their own ghosts and then "remove" them from unwitting
towns. This goes on until the French army finds beef with them and instead of locking them up, sends the two to a town where a real curse causes young girls to disappear. The rest of the plot is so concocted and complicated I can hardly go into it. But needless to say, the film has some problems, mostly in the area of fancy and fantasy.
Damon, as the lothario, and Ledger, as the dreamer, make plausible brothers and they're often funny in a shrieking, conniving kind of way. But they, too, get lost in the director's overindulgence.
The production design is really the star here. So if you must take the journey into Gilliam's world, where the storyline doesn't seem to matter, your eyes will be filled with captivating images. Unfortunately, the most interesting thought in your head will probably be the question, "what?"
Jayplay 09.01.05
-Lindsey Ramsey
Me and You and Everyone We Know
R, 93 minutes, South Wind 12 ☆☆☆
After debuting her first feature film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Miranda July is now known in Hollywood as a triple threat. She not only wrote the screenplay to this endlessly odd yet endearing film, but also stars in and directs the movie. The film is about the unusual and wonderful connections people choose to make throughout their everyday lives. The main characters are written with a colorful array of idiosyncrasies, albeit too blatantly. There is an elderly Hispanic man who finds love at the age of 70, two extremely bold and competitive teenaged girls and a middle-aged father struggling with a divorce.
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Initially, we are presented with adults dealing with crossroads-situations and
July makes wonderful use of quiet moments between characters and her script is sprinkled with poignant lines of dialogue and amusingly tender moments of empathy. At one point the divorcee solemnly says, "There is not enough time for time-outs".
Miranda July cleverly displays a unique collection of characters and their hopes, fears and traumas. But she falls short with the main romance and excessively weird circumstances. Despite her initial shortcomings, we can expect a bright future from her as evidenced in this charming, yet unstable, first effort.
children who exist somewhere in between. In spite of the film's "freshman kinks," there are several laugh-out-loud moments. A bi-racial four-year-old and his older brother engage in a truly hilarious conversation in a sex chat room.
- Sarah Tucker