Picture Perfect (1997)

Maybe they should have renamed this film Not So Picture Perfect as it did disappoint. Let's enumerate how this film failed.

Jennifer Aniston is Kate Mosley, a twenty something dynamo of creativity for a Manhattan advertising agency. Faster than you can say "Madison Avenue," she's masterminding an entire campaign that lands her agency the big bucks deal. So far, I was hooked into the rest of the film. Then, she gets passed over for an obvious and well deserved promotion. When she inquires into why she's being passed over, the crux of it is that she's single, has no debt, and is too mobile- in other words she can change jobs too easily, and is not shackled down tight enough. I was intrigued with Picture Perfect at this point.

What follows goes off the deep end along the way. Kate then decides to remedy this apparent "defect" and gets some guy to pose as her fiancee. He is Nick, the wedding videographer played by Jay Mohr, a man she met at a friend's wedding. The doors now seem to be opening up for her both professionally and personally. On the work front, her boss now takes her more seriously, and she is meeting the right people and the glass ceiling has opened. Personally, coworker Sam (Kevin Bacon), who didn't look at her twice when she was available, now has a romantic interest in her.

While the almost ritualistic formula for this type of romantic comedy is setup in the plot, Picture Perfect falls short. The characters are all unidimensional, and felt better suited for a half hour second rate comedy than the silver screen. It also isn't too humorous as a comedy, and not terribly romantic either. With so many films out there Picture Perfect just isn't that strong of an entry.

Overall Grade: C

Reviewed by Jonas

The B-52s, "FUNPLEX"

It's been quite a while since the B-52s released an album, but they're back in party mode with Funplex. Original members Kate Pierson, Fred Schneider, Cindy Wilson and Keith Strickland have put together a solid, fun collection of party songs.

All the songs here are unapologetically light, often very silly, usually involve sex or sexual innuendo, and pretty catchy. "Funplex," the first single, is all about heartbreak at the mall. "Love in the Year 3000" wonders what future will bring for love and comes up with "Robots, Bootybots, Erotobots... in the spandex spiral vortex." In "Dancing Now" the cure for a broken heart is to keep dancing, and you can just guess what the "Deviant Ingredient" is.

All the songs on Funplex have a lot of energy, from the pounding percussion to soaring vocals. After a while, the songs have a similar sound and can blend together in the mind's ear after the album is done. Still, the B-52s clearly wanted to make an album that was just about fun, love, and sex with no deeper meanings or goals... and they succeeded at that. If you're having a party, want some fun songs to blast in the car, or just want to put your mind on hold and listen to something fun, pick up Funplex.

Walk All Over Me (2007)

The straight-to-dvd movie Walk All Over Me aims to be a blend of comedy, suspense, and kinkiness, but it misses the mark on all three levels. Instead, the movie gives us one-dimensional characters, few laughs, fewer suspenseful moments, and way overdone cinematic techniques.

Alberta (Leelee Sobieski) is a perpetual screw-up. She literally flees from a job at a small gas station in the middle of nowhere when she misplaces the money her boyfriend was to give to a dangerous man. She travels to Vancouver to stay with her big sister Celene (Tricia Helfer, best known as the seductive Cylon on the new Battlestar Galactica). Celine is confident, has a specific life plan, lives in a great house... and happens to be a professional dominatrix. Celine isn't thrilled to have Alberta there, but offers to put her up.

Alberta gets a job at a big retail store, but soon she starts screwing up and needs more money. She goes through Celine's tapes of prospective clients, pretends to be Celine, and meets Paul (Jacob Tierney) to earn some money. After a slightly comical meeting at a mall, they head back to Paul's house -- where he's ambushed. Paul's partner-in-crime Rene (Lothaire Bluteau) is convinced that Paul stole half a million dollars from him, and he brought dangerous thug Isaac (Michael Adamthwaite) and Isaac's codependent brother Aaron (Michael Eklund) to convince Paul to give back the money. Alberta flees (again), but she manages to leave enough info for the bad guys to follow her back to Celine's house.

This movie would have been better if the characters had any depth, but that is sorely lacking. Alberta spends the movie nervous, apologizing, and promising to make up for her latest mistake. Celine is always in control and ruthless -- not that different than Helfer's role on Battlestar Galactica. And the criminals are fairly routine: the mastermind boss, the unstable dangerous one, and the flunky who'll go along with anything.

The story doesn't go anywhere worth following either. Perhaps the idea of a nervous and uncertain woman pretending to be a dominatrix is amusing in theory, but it gets old pretty fast here. (There are a few chuckles seeing Alberta being nervous while acting dominant in the middle of a food court.) There are very few laughs, less suspense, a lot of overdone slow-motion, several plot points that make no sense, and an inability to have anyone drive without hitting something -- even if the car has to swerve for no reason other than to hit something. As for kinkiness, it's an R-rated movie: All you have are Tricia Helfer in some fetish clothes (quite nice, but hardly worth sitting through the whole movie), a few sex toys, and Spencer (Ross McMillan), Celine's submissive client who wanders through the action clueless while bossed around by Celine and Alberta.

If you're looking for a movie with kinkiness, comedy, and heart, watch the nigh-infinitely superior Secretary. Walk All Over Me is a comedy that's rarely amusing, an action movie that's a bit dull, and a kinky movie that's pretty vanilla. My advice: Walk away from this one.

Overall Grade: D+

Reviewed by James Lynch

To The Death (2008)

We've been big fans of the Patrick Robinson series of naval novels, and have reviewed some of them. Apparently, we got someone's attention, and I've been sent an advanced excerpt of the first third of his latest novel. I've also been given permission to "share the wealth," and now you too can download it in a PDF. So, now in an Armchair Critic first, you too can get started on To The Death, which won't be out in hardcover for a few weeks. Happy reading!

Download here

Jonas

Top Gun (1986)

I hadn't looked back at a 1980's film in a while, but as I recall Top Gun was one of those films that everyone saw back when we were in high school. It was the film that jump started so many careers with an A list that includes Tom Cruise, Anthony Edwards, Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, Kelly McGillis, all coproduced by blockbuster creator Jerry Bruckheimer.

The story behind the making of Top Gun has to be kept in mind to understand the film. Reportedly, the script was done, and it called for numerous shots of naval aircraft on an aircraft carrier. These days, you'd just do it in CGI, and no one would be the wiser. However, Top Gun is perhaps the last great blockbuster action film that didn't use any CGI, and everything is real. Instead, they got in touch with the Navy, who agreed to provide an aircraft carrier and whatever else they needed for the project. The Navy was being so helpful because in the early 80's the military, still with the memories of Vietnam fresh in most Americans minds, had a serious PR problem. So, the Navy would cooperate, but they wanted to be able to rewrite the script to cast themselves in a more favorable light. Given that background, we can see how we ended up with a two hour recruiting session for a film.

Tom Cruise is the prototypical Navy flier, whose code name is Maverick. He pushes the plane to the limits, and is the guy you want on your side, but his commanding officer thinks he's a bit of a screwup. His Radar Intercept Officer (the guy in the back seat who does the electronics in the F-14), played by Anthony Edwards, goes by the call sign Goose. Together, after they chase off some Russian Migs they become the team to get sent to Top Gun, the popular name for the Navy Fighter Weapons School at Miramar Naval Air Station where the Navy's best 1% of fliers hone their skills in air to air combat, and compete for the crown of being the best of the best (of note, the school is now in Nevada; sounds funny to have a Naval Air Station so far from water, but that's budget cuts). Along the way Maverick has a romantic interest with one of the professors, Charlie (McGillis) a lay consultant to the military with a doctorate in astrophysics (probably would have made more sense for her to be an aviation engineer).

The real stars of the show, besides the actors, are the military hardware. The aircraft carrier featured is the USS Enterprise. The jets featured include the F-14 which was the Navy's fighter jet until it got replaced by the F/A-18 in the late 80's, although the last ones were only decommissioned two years ago. The "enemy" at the school is the F-5, which is a light fighter that was sold by the US and saw service in other countries, but was limited to being a trainer for the US military. Interestingly, the enemy they fight, a MiG-28, which seems to me to be presumed to be Soviet (although it may have originally been North Korean in the script but in the rewrite it became some generic communist country) is not really any real plane at all, and was played by more F-5 fighters that were painted black to look like the bad guys.

Overall, despite the film being so pro military, it still works. The acting is well done, and the action is top notch summer blockbuster fare. It gets a little dated for some segments, but all in all, Top Gun has fared well during the last two decades. Even if you saw it in theaters, it's still worth a second watching of this classic on DVD.

Overall Grade: A-

Reviewed by Jonas

U.S. Marshals (1998)

I've consistently liked the film The Fugitive, and was even a fan of the CBS TV show by the same name that extended it (although I still am annoyed that the show just stopped and never had any ending of some sort). At any rate, U.S. Marshals is kind of a "companion film" to what some call "the fugitive franchise."

Tommy Lee Jones reprises his role as Chief Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard who works for the U.S. Marshal service. The beginning starts off with some nailbiting action as a plane full of prisoners, kind of like in Con Air, but this flight is more business class than the chaos of the latter movie. After the plane crash, a prisoner is at large, Mark Sheridan, played by Wesley Snipes. Joe Pantoliano and Robert Downey, Jr. round out the fugitive hunting team that gets hastily organized. However, as the film progresses, we learn that there's more to Sheridan than meets the eye, and this is no simple manhunt for an escaped prisoner, and there are levels of complexity to this prisoner's alleged crimes which are not what they appear to be.

This film stands on its own, but it's nowhere in the same class as The Fugitive, which is a far better film in terms of plot, and pacing. I found myself kind of bored with U.S. Marshals, and the characters are not engaging or engrossing enough. While it was nice to see a reprise of Tommy Lee Jones' character of the Deputy Marshal, in U.S. Marshals it's definitely a little hollow compared to the earlier film.

Overall Grade: C+

Reviewed by Jonas

Legends of the Fall (1994)

Legends of the Fall is one of those films that I kept hearing about, but somehow never saw even though it's over a decade old. Through the magic of DVD's, this deficit was easy enough to fix. The star studded cast includes Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn and Julia Ormond.

This is an epic kind of film, the kind that Hollywood only rarely embarks on these days in this era of sequels, and lower budget fluff (the last film I saw that was truly epic was this one from a while ago). Legends of the Fall takes place mostly in Montana, around the beginning of the twentieth century, which is an interesting time historically as America is assuming her place on the world stage as a serious player, and the industrial revolution is finishing up as the next era is beginning.

Anyway, enough history. The film follows the tale of three brothers, their father, a woman, and some American Indian ranch hands. The father is Colonel William Ludlow, played by Anthony Hopkins giving a masterful performance that makes the film worth watching just for that. He's a retired officer from the Western Indian Wars, and one day chooses to toss his saber and make a home in the wilderness of the American West by the Rocky Mountains of Montana with his three sons. The youngest son, Tristan is partially raised by the American Indian ranch hand, One Stab (Gordon Tootoosis) who is far more part of the extended family than hired help. The conflict occurs early on when son Samuel returns from back East with a potential fianceè to meet the family, Susannah Fincannon (Ormond). While I thought she was coming for a week or two, she moves in for the winter. The three boys, against the severest objections of their veteran father, then decide to join the fight in World War I, and Samuel pays the ultimate price. The two sons return home, but they clearly bear the scars of battle. What makes matters worse is that they both fall in love with Samuel's fianceè, Susannah.

What follows is a tale that is both timeless and classic. As time passes, we see the changes in America first hand impacting the family, and in turn their relationships. The film is also done so well that the characters have a very real sense about them, with layers of complexity and nuance developing them into real figures, and not just actors.

The character of Tristan is quite well developed. While he is not an American Indian, he ends up being a "half breed" of sorts by virtue that One Stab was his surrogate father. Whenever adversity strikes, he goes back to this Indian heritage and training, and becomes the warrior brave- whether it is appropriate or not. He also makes an interesting contrast to another character, Isabel Two. While she is of mixed ancestry, and was raised more as an American Indian culturally, the Colonel educates her in academics, which is the enantiomer of Tristan (ok, I'll admit that I've been waiting for years to use that word and it finally fits somewhere). It is any wonder that these two characters are attracted to each other as they dovetail perfectly in their upbringing.

Legends of the Fall is one of those epic films that most will enjoy, and everybody should see at least once. It works on many levels, including character, costume, scenery, cinematography, and some really great performances by some of Hollywood's best. If you haven't had the opportunity to see it, it's well worth seeking out on disc.

Overall Grade: A+

Reviewed by Jonas

PORNOGRAPHY: THE SECRET HISTORY OF CIVILISATION

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Music Within (2007)

Music Within is one of those stand up and cheer films based on a true story. The real life hero is Richard Pimentel, a colorful speaker that took a circuitous route to where he ended up in life.

Pimentel is ably played by Ron Livingston. As a young man, while he doesn't have the money for college, he is a gifted speaker. He auditions up at the university for Ben Padrow (the ever present, but consistently good Hector Elizondo) the toughest speech professor since mine back in college. While the speeches that Pimentel gives for the audition are nothing short of impressive, Padrow suggests that Pimentel get some "real life experience" so he actually has something to talk about. Well, that goal for some experience leads Pimentel to Vietnam, where needless to say he gets more than he bargains for. After completing a heroic mission, meriting a personal thank you from his CO, as he plays cards with some buddies he ends up deaf from an incoming projectile.

The Army's answer is to discharge him, send him his disability check, and they don't think it's worth even putting the money into him to send him to college (enlightened thinking of the 70's). Pimentel teaches himself to read lips, befriends another disabled person, Art Honeyman (Michael Sheen), and soon gets a job where he is overpaid and underworked at an insurance company where they don't even know he's deaf. Now most guys out there would have rested on their laurels at that point, right? Not Pimentel who then leaves the cushy insurance job to help his fellow vets, and ends up being one of the key players in the Americans with Disabilities Act decades later.

Music Within has an amazing background story. Telling the story of Richard Pimentel, not exactly a household name, and what he achieved in the face of adversity should have made for a compelling movie. However, unlike films such as Freedom Writers, or The Ron Clark Story I just didn't feel the heroic part as much. Maybe I just didn't know where this was going for most of the film, but I was quite surprised at the end to hear that this guy had anything to do that was on the national stage. Maybe for too much of the film, Music Within just feels like a second tier affair, which is too bad given its subject matter. It's more of a "sit up and smile" than a "stand up and cheer" film, but still, I've seen worse. This is the point at which fellow Armchair Critic reviewer JB often says something like "it's not that it's a bad film, it's just that it's not a very good one" and that pretty much sums up what we have here.

Overall Grade: B-

Reviewed by Jonas

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

I've never been a big fan of the Die Hard movies, and even less of a fan of Bruce Willis. They keep churning out these 80's flicks reloaded (eg: Terminator, Knight Rider, Rocky, Voltron, Rambo, Transformers, etc) to capitalize on the nostalgia of the Generation Xer's, and I generally see right through it as most have fallen quite short of the originals. However, when I read the back of the DVD, I was intrigued by the plot, and brought Live Free or Die Hard home.

Live Free or Die Hard focuses on an online terrorism scenario where the FBI Cyber Security division gets hacked, as well as multiple vital services that our country depends on: energy, transportation, water, and communication. Think this is a ridiculous plot? Unfortunately, it's not. I'm still bothered by the blackout that affected most of the Northeast US back in 2003 for a few days. What did they tell us at the time? Lightening storm when there weather radar was clear? Who really knows, and according to the conspiracy theorists, it may have been Chinese hackers. Lest we think this is limited to some kooks out there, here's something more authoritative and recent.

At any rate, getting back to the film Live Free or Die Hard, within the borders of the US the hackers have setup to take down and paralyze the US. By getting snippets of code from the best hackers, and promptly blowing up their computers with their unknowing accomplices, they've created a cold trail and isolated themselves pretty well. One of these hackers is Matt Farrell played by Justin Long. At the start of the attack, the FBI asks for some assistance from local law enforcement, and Bruce Willis, I mean John McLane a veteran NYC detective, is to pick up the hacker and deliver him to FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC. It's not exactly a shock when we end up with Long and McLane in the middle of a gun battle against the baddies unloading the clips in his sorrowfully inadequate pistol against an automatic rifle. As the film progresses, we end up with Willis and Long working some serious OT to save the US of A from heading back into some type of Amish chaos where all technology is not working.

Overall, of all the Die Hard films, Live Free or Die Hard is my favorite. Unfortunately, Willis' acting prowess is still limited and hardly of any breadth or width. If you want a decent summer style blockbuster thriller (the scene in the tunnel was quite good) with some exploding special effects, than this film can get the job done.

Overall Grade: B

Reviewed by Jonas

Inconceivable - Ben Elton (1999)

Inconceivable is the punny title of Ben Elton's book about a couple and their difficulty having children. One might not think that infertility is a subject rife with comedic potential, but in the sharp and sometimes cruel hands of Ben Elton it makes for a very funny book indeed.

The book is written as an almost epistolatory novel, although instead of letters it is told in alternating extracts from the journals being written by Sam and Lucy, the childless couple. It is a device which works pretty well, giving a "he said/she said" feel to the proceedings. Sam's entries are funny and have a distinct male voice. Lucy's entries are funny and have a distinctive voice, too, but I wonder if the voice is a little stereotypical rather than distinctively female. (The voice sounded plausible to me, but I'm not a female and by definition poorly equipped to judge ...)

The through line, of course, is the various ups and downs of trying to get pregnant. There is lots of material here from New Age suggestions to make love on sites of mystic power to the indignities necessary for the various modern medical techniques. Interweaving with that story are subplots concerning Sam's attempt to kickstart his writing career by writing about their problems, and Lucy's response to that.

Elton's style is sharp and biting, almost mean at times, with an earthy streak that crops up now and then. Those familiar with British television might recognize the names Blackadder, The Young Ones and The Thin Blue Line, shows for which he was a writer. That's not to say there aren't moments of tenderness in the book, far from it! He brings a sense of reality to the relationship between Sam and Lucy, which is tender but tense, a complex and conflicted affair.

The book was adapted into a screenplay and made into the movie Maybe Baby, which is a little ironic since that's what happened in the book itself. There's a sort of snake eating it's own tail sense to that. The movie was directed by Elton and stars the usual passle of folks, including Hugh Laurie of House fame. All of which is rather beside the point.

The point being that the book is quite good, not a deep and world shaking read, but funny and a little poignant at places and worth the time if you need a break from Proust or whatever magnum opus you are currently perusing.

Overall Grade: B+

Iron Man (2008)

The summer blockbuster starts in May this year, and it starts with a bang: Iron Man is a big-budget superhero movie that works very well!

The story follows the comic book character's origin quite closely. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is a brilliant inventor, president of Stark Industries, famous, and wealthy. He's also a hedonist, willing to drink, gamble, and have one-night stands instead of keeping appointments. His assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is always trying to keep him on track, his military friend Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard) wants him to live up to his potential, and his business partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) is happy that Stark Industries is making money by making weapons.

Everything changes when, on a trip in Afghanistan, the military convoy transporting Stark is ambushed -- with Stark Industries weapons -- and Stark is injured and captured. Terrorist leader Raza (Faran Tahir) wants Stark to build them some weapons, but Stark finds inspiration in crisis and, with help, builds a large, clunky suit of armor that can shoot flames, punch through steel doors, and fly. Once Stark gets back to the states, he announces that Stark Industries will no longer make weapons. He also begins a very personal project which, after quite a bit of trial and error with a gray suit of armor, leads to the traditional red-and-gold armor Iron Man fans know so well. He makes it his mission to destroy all the weapons his company had made that are being used by the wrong people.

All is not well, though. Stane is outraged that the company that relies on making weapons will not keep building weapons. Further, Raza has found the scraps of the original armor and blueprints from Stark, leading to an even bigger, more powerful suit of armor...

Iron Man is an excellent action movie. First and foremost is the casting. Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark, both as the carefree self-absorbed jerk and then as the man whose eyes are opened to the consequences of his actions, and the heroism needed to make up for his cast. Gwyneth Paltrow has a lot of fun with her role, making Pepper into a smart, sprightly woman who both likes her boss and recognizes his flaws; their scenes together have both romantic tension and plenty of laughs. The supporting cast is also excellent, from the shady villains to Terrence Howard as the more responsible pal who's always frustrated by his friend's behavior.

The action and effects also work very well. The armors are a combination of sliding metal and hydraulic gears, creating something both futuristic and almost believable. Director Jon Favreau does better with the Stark-Pepper interaction than with the fight scenes at the end, but the effects are smooth enough that those shortcomings are minimal. My only complaint is that the movie strains itself towards the end by making the bad guys excessively evil so there's no way anyone but hatred for them.

Fans of the Iron Man comic book will find plenty of inside references, from possible characters in future films to a post-credit cameo that could set up a major storyline in the inevitable sequel. Folks who don't know the character will have no problem following the creation and rise of this techno-hero. It's nice to see a superhero movie and a big-budget blockbuster that's funny, exciting, intelligent, and thoroughly entertaining. Iron Man is a great start to the summer movie season.

Overall Grade: A

Reviewed by James Lynch

Moving Cloud, "Welcome: Who Are You?" (GO' Danish Folk Music, 2008)

The traditional music of Denmark is something of a melting pot, with influences not just from the Nordic countries but also from Celtic music as well. There has been enough cross-pollenation with Ireland for a session scene to take hold in Denmark, from which the band Moving Cloud emerged twenty years ago. Moving Cloud have been through a few changes in the intervening years, but their fine energetic sound makes them worthy of mention with the good Irish session-style bands from Ireland and elsewhere. (Please be advised that there was a Donegal-based band also named Moving Cloud -- the members of the two bands were evidently so fond of the same particular reel that they both named themselves after it -- that released two albums in the nineties. While I imagine they'd appeal to the same audience, they are two different bands, from different places, with different personnel.) Their newest album "Welcome: Who Are You?", produced by the venerable Dónal Lunny, came out in February.

The primary distinguishing element of Moving Cloud's sound is the heavy reliance on percussion. Svend Kjeldsen has been banging on the bodhrán and other assorted instruments for the band since their inception, and is the only person to be part of every Moving Cloud lineup to date. He provides a steady backbeat and groove to most of the pieces on the album. He is assisted on a couple of tracks by step dancer Mette Løvschal, a relative newcomer to the group. They collaborate on a unique recitation called "Anahorish... My Place of Clear Water," the most intriguing track on the album. Filling out the band's sound are long-time members John Pilkington (vocals, guitar, bouzouki) and Klavs Vester (flutes and whistles), along with the band's newest member, fiddler Christopher Davis Maack.

Outside of "Anahorish," "Welcome: Who Are You?" follows a tried and true pattern for albums of Irish session music. There are sets of jigs and reels, there are slower pieces, and Pilkington throws in a few songs for good measure. A lot of bands follow the same general approach, but Moving Cloud should still get noticed in the crowd because they play particularly well, with a healthy amount of energy and spirit. Now, I could understand it if somebody with a thousand or two Celtic albums might be more demanding than I am, but I actually haven't listened to a whole lot of new Irish-style CD's lately, and I found "Welcome: Who Are You?" to be a breath of fresh air.

Overall grade: B

reviewed by Scott

Reprinted with permission from The Green Man Review
Copyright 2008 The Green Man Review

Majestrum - Matthew Hughes (2006)

Majestrum, subtitled "A Tale of Henghis Hapthorn," is the first book in a series of tales featuring "the foremost freelance discriminator" of a far future "Old Earth." The setting is at a point where technology is about to enter a period of decline and magic is about to return to ascendancy, part of a cycle which has been repeated numerous times we are told. Hapthorn is a detective in the classic vein with more than a simple nod to Sherlock Holmes, although less than a full pastiche.

The plot, as one would expect, revolves around the tension between the "highly calibrated mind" of a scientific detective faced with the possibility of magic involved in a case. The ground covered here is something of an inversion of the idea covered by quite a few authors over the years - "The Magic Goes Away" by Niven comes to mind - and a look at the cycle coming back around to magic is refreshing. Hapthorn has, in a backstory which is never fully explained, faced a thaumaturge with the result that his intuitive faculty has been split off into a separate sort of consciousness sharing his head. The adventure also caused his "integrator,"a sort of programmed hardware/software agent and AI, to turn into a familiar which serves the same function.

The story is essentially a mystery, which means that it can not be too fully explicated without giving away the solution. Hapthorn is drawn into a complicated plot when an aristocrat, Lord Afre, hires him for what seems like a straightforward investigation into his daughter's suitor. Afre fears that the suitor is a gold-digger and wishes him investigated. Hughes starts from this well-trodden ground and develops a complicated and devious plot. Some of the twists and turns will be no surprise to those familiar with the mystery genre, but they are handled deftly enough.

Hughes style is consciously artificial; it reads like someone writing in a mock Victorian style, which is part of the reason why there is a Holmesian feel. It is affected, but works well with the plot and setting. The first chapter or so took a little getting used to, but then it settled down and was actually quite delightful. Hughes handles his characters moderately well, although to be fair, the only ones who truly matter are Hapthorn himself, his "other self" and his integrator/familiar. All the others are mere supporting characters, sketched in sufficiently for the short time they are present in the narrative.

The book, thus, is concerned almost exclusively with Hapthorn as articulated in Hughes' style. Readers who are not engaged by Hapthorn will find little else to distract them; although the plot is sturdy enough, the true meat is Hapthorn and his inner conflicts. Fortunately, that's enough.

Overall Grade: B

The Ditty Bops, Summer Rains (The Green Witch Society, 2008)

The Ditty Bops, comprised of lovers Amanda Barrett (vocals, mandolin, ukulele) and Abby DeWald (vocals, guitar), are making an excellent musical career for themselves despite, or perhaps because of, their consistent defiance of expectations and any easy categorization. Their combination of century-old musical styles, quirky but clever lyrics, fiendishly catchy melodies, and gorgeous harmonies earned their second album Moon Over the Freeway the #1 spot on my top 10 albums of 2006. With their new effort Summer Rains, The Ditty Bops continue to move to the beat of their own drum, and they have another great assortment of songs to show for it.

While a bit more laid back than its predecessors, Summer Rains follows the same general approach to what The Ditty Bops have done in the past. Most of the top-notch supporting cast has returned, including co-producer/keyboardist Mitchell Froom, ace ragtime pianist Greg Rutledge, and drummer Pete Thomas from Elvis Costello's Attractions and Impostors. The one significant addition to the sessions for the new album is guest vocalist Jesca Hoop, who adds a third part to the harmonies on two songs. About half of Summer Rains consists of love songs written in the style of old (i.e., Jazz Age if not earlier) pop standards, but with the rest of the album Barrett and DeWald take on a number of different topics with their lyrics. "Skinny Bones" is a rousing celebration, in the spirit of the hot club jazz of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli, of being under-endowed. The bluesy "What Happened to the Radio" is pretty self-explanatory (although Pete Thomas has played on at least one better song covering the same topic). The Ditty Bops go country on "Because We Do," a sarcastic song about passively accepting things as they are. The folksy "I Feel from the Outside In" deals with being misunderstood, and "The Weeds Are Winning" is a satirical assessment of the rat race and the lifestyle that goes with it. And on the poignant closing song "Sugar and Spice," Barrett and DeWald wonder what little girls are really made of.

Having said that, the real strength of Summer Rains comes from The Ditty Bops' superior sense of song craftsmanship, even as their style generally evokes a distant past. All the songs are melodic and eminently singable (try not singing along to the chorus of "All Over You," and see how far you get), and feature Barrett and DeWald's trademark harmonies. It wouldn't be to hard to envision songs like "When's She Coming Home" or the deviously romantic single "I Stole Your Wishes" being popular hits from a bygone age, at least if you imagine they are being sung from a man's perspective. But that's the essence of The Ditty Bops' music -- they can be completely charming and boldly subversive at the same time.

In an idealized world where pop music actually required melody, catchiness, and clever lyrics, The Ditty Bops would be considered elite pop artists. As it stands, they're somewhere to the left of alternative. While I suppose that's too bad, their music is there for everybody who wants to hear it. And Summer Rains, like its two predecessors, is well worth hearing.

(The album is currently available, to the best of my knowledge, only on The Ditty Bops' website. You can purchase downloads of the songs, or buy the CD. The CD booklet comes with some pop-up art, although whether or not you think the extra pictures and artwork are worth the money will most likely ultimately depend on how highly you value frontal nudity on the inside of a CD booklet.)

Overall grade: A

reviewed by Scott