Some still think learning to “play the game” is that sad day we put on the suit and mind our p’s and q’s to the corporate guy whose house we used to toilet paper in our idealistic and spirited teens. Read more...

Cat Power “The Greatest” Matador Records On her seventh album, Cat Power’s Chan Marshall returns to her roots. In “The Greatest,” Marshall sheds the anthem-like qualities of 1998’s “Moon Pix” and slumps deeper into emotional complexity than in her 2003 release “You Are Free.” But she does so this time by digging deep for the gold of the Memphis soul sound. Read more...

Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins “Rabbit Fur Coat” Team Love Records It seems when people who have a self-proclaimed “eclectic” taste in music are asked what they listen to regularly, they often respond with something like, “Oh, I listen to everything ““ except country.” But that may change with Jenny Lewis’ twangy solo album “Rabbit Fur Coat.” Lewis has temporarily stepped away from her three male counterparts who make up the indie-pop powerhouse Rilo Kiley, and teamed up with gospel singers The Watson Twins to produce a set of songs that resembles what one might imagine singing along to with a group of friends after church ““ intimately sad, sardonically playful, and simple, catchy melodies to carry it all through. Read more...

“Fateless” Directed by Lajos Koltai THINKFilm, Inc. Rather than encompassing the universal experience of World War II or the Nazi concentration camps, “Fateless” focuses on Gyuri Köves, a teenager from Budapest who is separated from his family and sent to work at a camp in Buchenwald, Germany. Read more...

We Are Scientists “With Love and Squalor” Virgin Records It looks like rock ‘n’ roll is dead. Again. SPIN Magazine’s latest issue named The Killers as the 2005 band of the year, the equivalent of calling Nickelback the next Nirvana or Radiohead jamming with Coldplay. Read more...

“Why We Fight” Directed by Eugene Jarecki Sony Pictures Classics Criticism of U.S. foreign policy, especially regarding the war in Iraq, is nothing new. A filmmaker who makes it the impetus behind a documentary film ““ especially one released almost three years since the war’s inception, and without much in the way of new facts ““ runs the risk of creating a completely superfluous work. Read more...

Reading a newspaper in January 2006, one feels a tragic sense of deja vu. Stories of violent insurgencies, military operations and ceaselessly rising body counts are reported with such regularity that a person can often find it difficult to distinguish one day’s news from the last. Read more...