An old review of Radiohead’s Ok Computer commented that their songs, to the band’s credit, claimed to ‘care for the listener,’ saying ‘this song cares about you.’ The same could be said of the Flaming Lips. Songs like ‘The Gash’ (from The Soft Bulletin) or ‘When You’re Twenty-Two’ (Transmissions from the Satellite Heart) or ‘You Have to Be Joking’ (Hit To Death in the Future Head) have that fervor, that ability to entertain to the utmost while also seeking to comfort and encourage the listener.
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I wish I had been able to watch A Scanner Darkly with more care. That is, I wish there hadn’t been three middle-aged assholes sitting in front of me while I watched it. Having missed the film when it was running in larger theaters I was delighted to see that it was playing at The Cinema, in Rochester. The Cinema is ‘one of the oldest, continuously run, single-screen cinemas in the United States.’1 Sadly, perhaps because you can see a double-feature there for five bucks, The Cinema also attracts a number of film-goers not at all interested in watching movies.
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There is something about a film like Quinceañera that you can’t shake off. It doesn’t possess anything immediately compelling: the acting is sometimes a little too self-conscious, the cinematography is nothing to marvel at. And yet, as the story unfolds and weaves the lives of two outcast cousins together with a wise old uncle, one realizes that for all its cinematic shortcomings, Quinceañera’s ambition is to enjoyably evoke the sincerity and honesty in the characters it follows.
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