Top 100 Albums of 2014

Honorable Mention Sylvan Esso – Sylvan Esso; Empire – Orphan; Skrillex – Recess; The Drums – Encyclopedia; Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 2; St. Paul & The Broken Bones – Half the City; Johnny Marr – Playland; Pharrell Williams – G I R L; Patterns – Waking Lines; Wu-Tang Clan – A Better Tomorrow; Mark Lanegan Band – Phantom Radio; Ray LaMontagne – Supernova; Blood Red Shoes – Blood Red Shoes; Jack White – Lazaretto; Coldplay – Ghost Stories. Top 100

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REVIEW: Beware of Mr. Baker [2012]

“Go on with the interview. Stop trying to be an intellectual dickhead.” My first thought when researching the documentary Beware of Mr. Baker was acknowledging I really don’t know anything about music. Facts about this legendary, unpredictable, and difficult drummer—Ginger Baker—being in Cream surprised me since I always associated the band with Eric Clapton. Not only was the group’s guitar virtuoso not the main singer, though, he wasn’t even a credited songwriter as bassist Jack Bruce and lyricist Pete Brown held the honor. Even more, it was actually Baker who…

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TIFF12 REVIEW: Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story [2012]

“I’m crushed by my ideas” As easily titled by another of its subject’s mottos—”Expect the Unexpected”—as what documentarian Brad Bernstein chose, Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story re-exposes the world to one of its most influential illustrators/commercial artists. Disappointed by my own ignorance to the name, I looked up his work and discovered nothing but a passing resemblance to other children’s art I had seen before. Only when the late Where the Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak came onscreen to laud his friend and peer’s bravery…

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REVIEW: Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang [Nanny McPhee Returns] [2010]

“Yes poo man, we’ve come from far, far away in the land of soap” I must say I’m disappointed in Emma Thompson. I could understand her desire to write and star in an adaptation of Nurse Matilda—perhaps a childhood favorite of hers or her children—but her new incarnation of the wart-faced, bucktoothed taskmaster, Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, seems a complete cash grab. I looked past the juvenile humor of the first film, realizing the work was aimed at children, but the amount of poo jokes here is astonishing,…

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