THE WORLD'S END

Thomas Wolfe said you can't go home -- but the movie The World's End suggests that you can go back, get drunk, and battle identity-stealing robots.  Or something.  This movie is a comedy that's both funny and wildly inconsistent.

Gary King (Simon Pegg) is the textbook definition of an aging loser focused on reliving his youth.  The movie opens with Gary recounting how, on graduation from high school in 1990, he and four friends tried to complete the "epic" Golden Mile: drinking a pint at each of twelve pubs in their sleepy little town of Newton Haven, with the last one being the World's End.  When Gary realizes they never actually finished the Golden Mile, he decides to get his buddies together to try again.  Andy (Nick Frost), Oliver (Martin Freeman), Steven (Paddy Considine), and Peter (Eddie Marsan) all have grown-up jobs and families, plus they don't like Gary much; something Gary did led Andy to quit drinking.  But Gary pleads, lies, and fast-talks the guys to meeting him back in their old town to try the Golden Mile again.  They're also joined, off and on, by Oliver's sister Sam (Rosamund Pike), who Steven has a crush on and Gary had a brief fling with.

The trip down the Golden Mile starts as expected, with Gary being a jackass constantly and the others going along (even if Andy only drinks tap water).  But a run-in with some teens in the men's room reveals that some, perhaps many, of the townspeople have been replaced with robots (called "Blanks") filled with blue liquid who attack Gary and his buddies with outstretched hands.  The friends don't know how far the conspiracy goes -- or who are Blanks and who are townspeople going along with them -- but Gary persuades the others that they have to finish the Golden Mile to avoid attracting attention.  And so there's lots of drinking, with frequent robot battles and bits of philosophy -- with the ultimate goal of the World's End.

The World's End is pretty silly, and in some ways quite clever.  Pegg makes Gary a pretty unlikable character, someone who resolutely refuses to grow up -- he even has his car from 1990, complete with the same mix tape that was in it them -- and who gets his friends to go along with him by simply talking and talking until they give in.  There are also jabs at the small towns, from the sameness of the local pubs to the small-town paranoia of outsiders; and the supporting cast all have plenty of comic moments.  But the attempt to switch from a simple drinking comedy to nature of humanity feels like tacking on some unnecessary gravitas to a goofy film.  The movie is also conveniently inconsistent when it comes to the Blanks -- at times the fight like martial arts masters, at other times the guys can beat up dozens of them -- and the film completely glosses over the pretty horrible fate of those who are replaced.  The World's End is a funny movie that would have benefited from more consistency in both its story and its universe.

Overall grade: B-
Reviewed by James Lynch

 

YOU'RE NEXT

The horror movie where a group of people are trapped and under siege is nothing new.  You're Next could have been just the latest in this tradition (not to mention the attackers being masked), but this horror movie adds something fairly new: a would-be victim who can fight back.

The Davison family --three sons, one daughter -- is getting together to celebrate their parents' 35th wedding anniversary.  They meet up at the parents' giant, fairly isolated house (there is a house close by, but since the movies opens with those folks getting killed, the isolation factor is maintained) for dinner and conversation.  Crispian Davsion (AJ Bowen) gets the most grief from his relatives, whether teasing from his big brother Jake (Joe Swanberg) or disappointed comments from his father Paul (Rob Moran).  Crispian also brought Erin (Sharni Vinson), his Australian girlfriend, to meet the family.  (Everyone else brought a date or spouse too.)

The family dinner is interrupted in the worst way possible: by crossbow bolts.  Three people wearing animal masks lay siege to the Davison house, using a crossbow, machete, and ax to kill everyone they can.  (And, of course, one of them is inside.)  But it turns out that Erin is good at everything from survival to making booby traps to killing, and soon the victims start turning the tables on the attackers.  But the Davisons weren't chosen at random...

You're Next works quite well as a simple variant of the slasher flick.  There are plenty of nods to horror movie cliches (frequent slow motion, synthesizer music that feels like it came out of the 1980s, slow camera shots that drift closer, the "shock" ending) but they're done well enough that the movie doesn't feel cheap or derivative.  The actors don't have much to do besides scream and run (except for Vinson, who gets to be a kick-ass take-charge hero) but there are plenty of scares (with a decent amount of gore) and twists to keep You're Next entertaining -- and pretty nerve-wracking from start to end.

Overall grade: B
Reviewed by James Lynch

HEROES OF COSPLAY

For me, one of the highlights of comic book/fantasy/sci-fi conventions is the costuming. Some of the attendees are cosplayers (costumed players) who create amazing costumes of characters from all fantasy genres, and some of the work is truly spectacular. The Syfy Channel has taken on this world with their series Heroes of Cosplay, looking at the folks who are professional cosplayers -- or who are trying to be.

Each episode of this series looks at several different cosplayers as they prepare to compete in the cosplay competitions at America's biggest fantasy conventions. Some are longtime cosplayers, some are new (the second episode had someone with an online cosplay program who wanted to experience the world firsthand), some want to make a profession from it (like Jesse -- the show's only male competitor so far) and others want to make their living winning the grand prizes. Then there's Yaya Han, a former competitor who became so famous she retired from competiting and works as a judge at cosplay competitions. She also feels the need to keep creating amazing costumes to maintain her reputation -- and to keep getting the judging jobs, presumably.

While Heroes of Cosplay does a good job of showing how these people put their costumes together (with lots of help from friends, family, and significant others) and approach competition, the show is maddeningly vague in other areas. Are these people geeky in other aspects of their lives, or just when it comes to costuming? How much money can they actually make from competing, and are their other folks besides Yaya who sustain themselves solely through cosplay? How do they balance their friendships (lots of the cosplayers meet for dinner at the conventions the night before the competition) with the fact that they're competing with each other? And what is it like when the conventions end and the real world returns?

Heroes of Cosplay is less manipulative than other reality tv shows and makes less fun of the fantasy world than other shows (such as King of the Nerds), but it still could have gotten a little more in-depth with both the world of cosplay and the lives of these uber-competitors. It's a decent look at the costuming side of conventions, but there should be a bit more. Overall grade: B- Reviewed by James Lynch

RIFFTRAX: STARSHIP TROOPERS

As the years go on, more and more people find out the surprise in The Empire Strikes Back -- one of cinema's biggest surprises -- not from the original movie, but rather from comedies like Spaceballs, Robot Chicken, or YouTube videos. Fortunately, I didn't feel a similar sense of being ripped off from seeing Starship Troopers for the first time while it was being endlessly mocked by the Rifftrax folks. This is a testament to their comedic skill -- and the many weaknesses of the original movies.

Rifftrax: Starship Troopers was the latest live movie theater showing of Rifftrax, the talking-during-the-movie comedy of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett. (It's also the first Rifftrax project funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign.) The three mercilessly attack the almost-campy space action/melodrama that is Starship Troopers. Some jokes come from the movie's recurring elements (such as which drags more: the innumerable bug battles or the slow shots of model spaceships gliding through space), some from the cast (from Denise Richards' vapidity to Neil Patrick Harris being the only big successful member of the cast). The three hosts even find a... unique way to deal with the two big moments of nudity from Starship Troopers.

Rifftrax: Starship Troopers is a lot of fun. While there are several times when the explosions and gunfire of the original drown out the jokes, Nelson, Murphy and Corbett keep the funny flying fast and furious. It would have been hard to take Starship Troopers seriously before -- but at least it provided some good fodder for comedy! Overall grade: A- Reviewed by James Lynch

WE'RE THE MILLERS

What happens when a bunch of misfits decide to pose as a wholesome all-American family so they can smuggle drugs? You get We're the Millers, a profanity-filled, predictable comedy.

David (Jason Sudekis) is a small-time drug dealer who winds up getting mugged, losing his stash, his money, and the money belonging to his rich boss, Brad Gurdlinger (Ed Helms). Normally Brad would just have David killed, but Brad has an alternative: David travels to Mexico, picks up "a smidge and a half" of marijuana in an RV, brings it back to the states, and Brad will void what David owes, plus pay David a hundred thousand dollars.
Too bad David looks like a scumbag drug dealer -- until he realizes that no one looks at families twice, so he decides to hire a family. He recruits Rose (Jennifer Aniston), a stripper, to be his wife; nice-but-dorky Kenny (Will Poulter) and tough homeless girl Casey (Emma Roberts) pose as his kids. Together they become the Millers, head to Mexico, pick up the drugs (a few tons' worth), and return to the U.S. Unfortunately, the drugs belonged to Pablo Chacon (Tomer Sisley), a rival of Brad's who'll kill to get his merchandise back. It also doesn't help that the Millers keep running into the Fitzgerald family (Nick Offerman, Kathryn Hahn, Molly Quinn), who are as wholesome as the Millers pretend to be -- and that Don is a D.E.A. agent.

I suppose We're the Millers might have had some sort of commentary about what lies just beneath the surface of everyday society -- but the movie skips that for some very obvious laughs. There are numerous unbelievable action scenes, pretty obvious set-ups (such as stripper Rose not just performing, but with perfectly choreographed moves, lighting, and machines; or someone walking in on Kenny at the worst possible time), a tendency to use cursing as a substitute for jokes, and the sadly inevitable shift towards sentimentality. There are some funny moments in We're the Millers, but overall the movie is more coarse and obvious than amusing. Overall grade: C- Reviewed by James Lynch

Aegis Padlock Fortress

When it comes to moving data around, while a USB flash drive is hard to beat for convenience, when it comes to capacity, a hard drive is what gets the job done. A full drive of data out in "the wild" should make you nervous, and if the data is sensitive, then the Aegis Padlock Fortress is the tool to keep it secure. This is a drive designed specifically to keep data secure for applications including the military, government, and healthcare.

The encryption on the Aegis Padlock Fortress is top notch. It is FIPS 140-2 certified.  To achieve this level of certification requires that is has military grade AES-XTS 256-bit hardware encryption. The XTS is a newer algorithm, that reportedly uses 2 cipher keys simultaneously, to provide a greater level of security than other algorithms.

Selena Gomez, STARS DANCE (Target Version)

Selena Gomez returns to the music scene (but without her band, The Scene) with her latest album, Stars Dance.

"Birthday," the opening song on Stars Dance, is a mix of  youngish elements (a sing-song delivery combined with hand claps) and some very sexual moaning -- and that's the balance Selena goes for through the whole album.  Unlike her last album, When the Stars Go Down, the singer wants to shed her G-rated Disney persona -- but she doesn't want to scare off the parents of her young fans (or cause enough controversy to get booted from the radio).  So there are some risque lyrics ("'cause we fit/perfectly/when you lay/over me") and talk of staying together all night and into the day -- but nothing too overtly sexual.

The feel of the music is much simpler: party!  The songs all have a upbeat tempo (even the breakup songs "Forget Forever" and "Love Will Remember"), and there's plenty of remixing and synthesizers going on here (which explains why her former band is effectively gone).  There are touches of different styles of music scattered through the album -- Middle Eastern on "Come & Get It," dubstep on "Slow Down," even a little Jamaican for "Like a Champion" -- but this is radio-friendly music for listeners who want to party with friends at a club while feeling older for staying up late.

Stars Dance is fluff -- but it's fun fluff.  The writing is trite (all about romance and partying (and the two together)) but Selena has a pleasant voice (even if it gets a lot of remixing here) and the songs are enjoyable and forgettable.  Also, the Target version (disclaimer: I work for Target -- but I play for keeps!) has two bonus songs and two exclusive songs.  Stars Dance is a nice little pop album.

Overall grade: B-
Reviewed by James Lynch

THE CONJURING

It's time for a good ol' fashioned haunted house story with The Conjuring.  And while the often-overused "based on a true story" tag may not push this movie from from fantasy to reality for viewers, there is methodical proceeding to the horror that makes the film more believable that the standard horror movie -- and more effective.

In 1971, Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) and his wife Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) work studying the supernatural.  Ed is a demonologist, while Lorraine is a clairvoyant.  They record cases of supernatural occurrences, debunk or explain the mundane events, and store affected items in their home -- including a very creepy doll.  And their latest case is the Perron family.

Roger Perron (Ron Livingston) and his wife Carolyn (Lili Taylor) just moved into a new home with their five daughters, ranging in age from a cute little girl to a surly teenager.  And the warning signs start almost immedictely: The family dog won't enter the house, the youngest daughter finds a music box that she says belongs to her invisible friend (who will appear when the music stops), there's a sealed-off cellar, doors and windows open and close, and so on.  When bruises start appearing on Carolyn, the kids seem to be pulled and attacked, and a creepy being starts appearing, the Perrons turn to the Warrens for help.

The Conjuring is, as much as possible, a paranormal procedural.  The Warrens know there's something evil and want to perform an exorcism, but they need proof to give to the church -- leading to a scientific collection of data while fearing what's attached itself to the family.  The movie is simple, yet quite effective.  While the movie has the usual flying furniture and sudden appearances of decaying ghosts, there are also moments of great tension, such as when a blindfolded Carolyn plays "hide and clap" with an unseen entity, or as Lorraine gets unsettling visions of what happened before in the house.  The acting is solid, the chills are there, and while The Conjuring treads familiar territory, it does so pretty well.

Overall grade: B
Reviewed by James Lynch

Big Star, NOTHING CAN HURT ME soundtrack

Big Star was an artistically infleuntial and commercially unsuccessful music group that was recently examined in the documentary Nothing Can Hurt Me.  To go with the docuemntary, the Nothing Can Hurt Me soundtrack collects demos and new muixes of songs from the band's three albums, plus a few tunes from Alex Chilton and Chris Bell after the band broke up.

Nothing Can Hurt Me is a bit of an oddity.  This isn't exactly a greatest hits collection, as several of the band's bigger songs are missing (such as "Watch the Sunrise" and "Thanks You Friends").  And while none of these songs are the original studio recordings, the songs aren't that different from the originals that die-hard fans will need to hear the different versions.

What Nothing Can Hurt Me does is remind the listener of how amazing Big Star really was.   Big Star could disaplay the rocking feel of the 1970s when they were recording, but they also captured the angst of teen romance (on songs like "September Gurls" and "Thirteen") and they had a musical feel that foreshadowed the college alternative music scene of the 1980s.  The songs are mostly in chronological order, which shows the band's steady movement to both experimentation and disillusionment (the latter highlighted by Alex Chilton's "All We Ever Got from Them Was Pain").  Nothing Can Hurt Me is a great look at a band whose music never took off like they wanted -- but was loved by so many.

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch

PACIFIC RIM

Giant robots fight giant monsters!  This is about all you need to know about Pacific Rim, an action movie that is big on big effects, short on originality, and a waste of the directing talent of Guillermo del Toro.

In the near future, a dimensional rift in the, well, Pacific Rim sends out giant monsters that humanity names Kaiju.  After conventional weapons prove too costly, the nations of the world build Jaegers: giant robots, guided by two pilots connected by a neural interface called the Drift.  At first the Jaegers are extremely effective, but soon more powerful Kaiju emerge, Jaegers start getting destroyed, and the world abandons the Jaeger program for a series of giant walls that don't work at all.

Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) wants to keep the Jaeger program going, so he relocates his resources to Hong Kong with a mission: Destroy the dimensional rift.  He recruits Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam), a once-successful Jaeger pilot who got burned out when his co-pilot and brother was killed.  Mako Mori (Rino Kikuchi) is a protege of Pentecost's, and she wants to be a Jaeger pilot (not to mention love interest for Beckett).  Scientists Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) are in the program to learn the creature's goals and weaknesses -- and they're in the movie for comic relief.  And Ron Perlman is there as Hannibal Chau, a black-market dealer in Kaiju remains.

All the plotting -- which includes hidden agendas, romantic angles, last-minute complications, and pilot rivalries -- is secondary to seeing the last four Jaegers (all varied in design, and abilities) slug it out with a number of Kaiju (all varied in design and abilities).  While the battles are a little entertaining at first, Pacific Rim soon feels like a high-budget Godzilla movie.  The Kaiju behave inconsistently as the plot dictates, the battles are often confusing (not to mention reliant on suddenly-introduced weapons and slow motion), and the whole thing feels shamelessly designed to please audiences looking for simple pleasures.  Pacific Rim is the stereotypical summer blockbuster -- lots of effects, little else.

Overall grade: D+
Reviewed by James Lynch

ROBOT CHICKEN DC COMICS SPECIAL

Ah, irony.  Back when the "Twisted Toyfare Theater" strips of Mego superhero action figures appeared in the magazine Toyfare, DC. Comics sued to keep their characters from appearing.  "TTT" inspired Robot Chicken, which had no problem showing DC characters in humorous or embarrassing situations.  And now there's the Robot Chicken DC Comics Special, which is nothing but DC characters.  Go figure.

Robot Chicken DC Comics Special is twice as long as the typical Robot Chicken episode, making the special about 22 minutes.  There are both running gags (a kickball, Bane breaking Batman's back, Aquaman finally being pushed too far, goofy real DC characters) and stand-alone bits (multiple ice-based villains robbing the same place, the show's uber-nerd getting a Green Lantern power ring).  And numerous celebrities do voices here, including Alfred Molina, Nathan Fillion, Megan Fox, Neil Patrick Harris, and Alex Borstein.

There are over two hours of extras on the dvd (amazing, considering the main feature is less than half an hour), from deleted sketches and outtakes to the making of the special, a visit to the DC Comics offices on the West Coast, and commentaries on the sketches from both the writers and actors.  Given how brief the main feature is, I would have liked this better if they added some sketches of the DC characters from the regular episodes, as there have been plenty of them and they could have really given us the Robot Chicken take on these heroes and villains.

The special is still pretty good, though.  Robot Chicken DC Comics Special may go for the goofier or simpler types of humor, but there are lots of funny moments ("Protect me, Selena Gomez!") and things even comics fans may have never thought about (like Superman's memory-stealing kiss power from Superman 2).   This is a quick viewing -- and it's not exactly designed for multiple viewings -- but it's fun while it lasts.

Overall grade: B-
Reviewed by James Lynch


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THE HEAT

The comically mismatched partners get the comedy-police treatment in The Heat, a movie continuing the trend obnoxious, gross, over-the-top humor starring women instead of men.  The Heat has two great leads, with everything else being forgettable or predictable.


The setup here is pretty simple.  Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) is an ambitious, intelligent, successful by-the-book F.B.I. agent hoping for a promotion.  She's also uptight, alienates her co-workers, never curses, and has no social life.  (All of her personal photos are either her alone or with her neighbor's cat.)  Her chance at promotion comes with her new assignment -- going to Boston to arrest a drug dealer no one can identify -- and the chance to show she can work well with others.

Unfortunately for Ashburn, the Boston cop handling the case is Mullins (Melissa McCarthy), a profanity-spewing, play-by-her-own-rules battleaxe who terrorizes her squad and has no filter to her comments or violence.  Can the two work together to stop the bad guy?

The answer to that is as obvious as the rest of the movie.  Bullock and McCarthy are great together, and their polar-opposite characters have a nice chemistry.  Beyond that, though, everyone and everything else is just so much background noise.  The closest thing any of the supporting cast have to character development is Mullins' constant jokes about an albino agent; we also get such familiar scenes as an inappropriate family, getting drunk together in a bar, and quiet moments of bonding.

There are plenty of laughs from the stars in The Heat, but if you stop to think for just a second you'll see that there's almost nothing else worthwhile or original besides them.

Overall grade: B-
Reviewed by James Lynch

Kylie Minogue and William Baker, KYLIE FASHION

Throughout Kylie Minogue's career, fashion and image have been intertwined with her music.  Whether that fashion is a supplement to her sound or a substitution for her ability depends on whether or not one is a fan; but the history of her look is traced in loving detail in the coffee table book Kylie Fashion.

Written by Kylie Minogue and William Baker (Kylie's creative director), Kylie Fashion takes a chronological look at Kylie's fashion history, from her 1988 album Kylie to 2012's The Abbey Road Sessions.  In addition to full- and partial-page pictures from albums, concerts, promotions, and magazines, there are comments on the work from Kylie, William, numerous designers (including Jean Paul Gaultier someone from Yves Saint Laurent, and Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana), and photographers.  There are occasional bits of trivia as well; for example, Katerina Jebb observes, "I found the gold hot pants [in the video for "Spinning Around"] at the North End Road market in London for 50 pence."  There's also an introduction by Jean Paul Gaultier and an afterword from Kylie.

Kylie Fashion is essentially a lovefest between Kylie and all the people she worked with.  Everyone quotes in the book loves her, and she has nothing but praise for everyone she's worked with.  Some of the comments are grandiose ("...in bringing Kylie as Aphrodite to life, a perfect fusion of fashion and fantasy, the ultimate sartorial expression of a pop goddess") and some oddly silly.  (Baker notes, "It was truly exciting to witness Kylie's transformation into a sex siren of almost drag queen sensibilities," while Kylie observes on one outfit, "I was coming close to being a human disco ball!")  There is a bit more gravity when Kylie's fashion choices intersect with her recovery from breast cancer surgery, but Kylie Fashion is all about the looks, be they playful, sexy, haute couture, or out of this world.

"Fashion has been a permanent and continually evolving part of my career," says Kylie in her afterword -- and Kylie Fashion is a terrific look at, well, her looks throughout her career.  The photographs here are stunning, and while the continual praise can get a bit much, Kylie Fashion certainly delivers what the title promises.

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch

MAN OF STEEL

I really wish superhero movies would stop retelling the origins of some of the most famous, well-known characters in comic books.  Man of Steel adds a few new wrinkles to the Superman story, but overall it doesn't feel all that new.

Krypton is destroyed, of course, but more happens before then.  Jor-El (Russell Crowe) knows that the planet is doomed, but he also believes Kryptonian society became too static, breeding their people for specific purposes.  General Zod (Michael Shannon) believes in exterminating weak Kryptonian bloodlines, staging a coup and killing Jor-El -- but not before Jor-El can send his son Kal-El to Earth to create his own destiny.  As for Zod, he and his followers are imprisoned in the Phantom Zone.

Jump ahead to Earth, where Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) is trying to find his way in the world.  Clark uses his powers to help others, but his human father Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) tells him to keep his powers a secret because the world isn't ready for him yet.  Reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) tracks Clark down based on the people he saved, while his mother Martha (Diane Lane) offers him a mother's unconditional love.  And a program lets a computer simulation of Jor-El offer Clark advice.

Then Zod and his followers show up on Earth, with a plan that involves destroying humanity to create a new Krypton.  It's time for Clark to don his slightly-less-traditional red-and-blue outfit and become Superman, to save the Earth!

I wish Man of Steel had been more entertaining.  Cavill does good as both Clark and Superman, a hero in the making who can't stop helping people but isn't sure how they'll react to him.  Shannon is terrific as Zod, full of a manic zeal and conviction that, to him, justify all violence.  On the flip side, Russell Crowe gets tiring as the Kryptonian "ghost dad" offering endless advice, Costner seems a little bland, and Amy Adams lacks the certain spark and determination that make Lois Lane a human match for Superman.

Director Zack Snyder handles action far better than drama.  The movie flounders during the first half, as we get barraged by a seemingly-endless number of flashbacks.  Once Superman and the Kryptonians start zipping around the screen, things pick up considerably.  There are a few plot holes, but these are balanced by the epic scale of the battles.

Based on the initial box-office success, Man of Steel will probably be the start of a new Superman franchise.  I'm curious to see what happens next -- and what they can do when the origin doesn't need to be re-told yet again.

Overall grade: B-
Reviewed by James Lynch

The Lonely Island, THE WACK ALBUM (deluxe version)

Time for some more comedy rap!  The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone) are back with The Wack Album, their third album of humor mixed in with "hardcore" rap stylings.  The trio haven't lost their touch, offering an album that's more consistent than their last releases.

On The Wack Album the comic trio sing about everything from punctuation ("Semicolon") to a fashion statement or malfunction ("You've Got the Look") to offering compliments to each other ("Compliments") to even a version of maturity ("Diaper Money").  There are plenty of guest singers here -- including Lady Gaga, Billie Joe Armstrong, T-Pain, and Justin Timberlake -- but this remains the comics' focus.

And The Wack Album works very well.  Many of the jokes are unexpected, whether adding a new twist to teen partying in "Spring Break Anthem" or turning the youthful slogan "You only live once" into a paranoid rant in "YOLO."  On "Spell It Out" Samberg delivers his lyrics one letter at a time, while "Hugs" and "I Don't Give a Honk" replace profanity with G-rated terms very well.  Best of all, there aren't the "filler" songs on past albums that may have seemed like a good idea in theory but were just weird without being funny.  The Wack Album delivers its laughs from start to finish.

(The deluxe version also comes with a DVD with several music videos, plus their 100th Saturday Night Live digital short.  These are all terrific.)

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch