Archive for October, 2009

CD Review: Various Artists, “Putumayo Presents A Family Christmas”

Putumayo’s countless compilations of mall-friendly world music would be eminently mockable even if the company hadn’t been sent up so memorably on Seinfeld, but you’ve got to hand it to them — these folks know how to put together a nifty mix CD. Their umpteenth holiday compilation, A Family Christmas, breaks the label’s strenuously pan-cultural stereotype, instead serving up a tasty souffle of high-quality yuletide music while still managing to stay eclectic enough to include the likes of Martin Sexton, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and Leon Redbone.

At 11 tracks and just over 33 minutes in length, A Family Christmas lasts just long enough to down a couple mugs of eggnog, or to string half the lights on your tree — or, really, to play for hours while you cook dinner, wrap presents, or enjoy family time. Only two of these tracks aren’t available anywhere else (Johnny Bregar’s lovely acoustic take on “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and the Brave Combo’s “Jolly Old St. Nick”), but if you aren’t the type of person who’s likely to spend the money on, say, Leon Redbone’s Christmas Island — but still wouldn’t mind owning his delightfully droll take on “Let It Snow” — A Family Christmas is a decent value at $13.99. If you’ve already got a huge collection of holiday music, this isn’t anything you need to bother with, but if you’re looking for one Christmas album with enough breadth to please the whole family — and hold up to plenty of repeat plays — you can safely purchase A Family Christmas without reservations.

Blu-ray Review: “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure”

It may have taken Disney more than 50 years to give Peter Pan’s spunky sidekick her own feature, but now that they’ve kicked off the Tinker Bell film franchise, they’re through fooling around: Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure arrives only a year after 2008’s Tinker Bell, and comes complete with the kind of top-shelf voice cast (including a cameo from Anjelica Huston) and big-budget extras (including a score performed by an 82-piece symphony) that used to be synonymous with Disney. Direct-to-video animated films get a bum rap, and that’s due in large part to the crap that Disney released in the ’90s; between Tinker Bell and its sequel, however, the studio seems to be making a real effort to turn all that around.

The official synopsis of the film is as follows: The tale of Disney’s favorite fairy, Tinker Bell, continues in an all-new magical adventure beyond Pixie Hollow! Discover how the Pixies make their magic dust! Let your imagination soar as Autumn comes to Pixie Hollow. Take off in a hot air balloon with Tinker Bell and her new friend Blaze, a lightning bug who lights her way, on an enchanting secret journey to find a new moonstone, the source of the Pixies mystical dust. But hold on tight! There’ll be amazing encounters, some close calls, and a daring rescue by her old friend Terence! In her biggest adventure yet, Tinker Bell not only learns a lesson in responsibility, she discovers the true meaning of friendship. From the creators of Tinker Bell, ‘Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure’ is a captivating journey of self-discovery everyone will want to take. Read the rest of this entry

CD Review: The Hipwaders, “A Kindie Christmas”

If you’re one of those people who breaks out in a cold sweat any time the words “Christmas music” are uttered before Thanksgiving, you’re probably not in any hurry to read about this holiday season’s new musical offerings — particularly of the kid-friendly variety — but you needn’t fear A Kindie Christmas, the 10-song yuletide collection from the Hipwaders: Santa puts in plenty of appearances, sure, but the band keeps the sleigh bells and fa-la-las to a minimum, and the whole thing plays essentially like just another new album from the band that gave you Educated Kid and Goodie Bag.

That might sound a little dismissive, but it isn’t: The Hipwaders are “kindie” in the best sense of the word, serving up a brand of family-oriented pop that has its jangly roots in the classic sound of artists like the dB’s and ’80s R.E.M. A Kindie Christmas is ten breezy tracks (just under 24 minutes in total) of hip holiday fun, from the Tex-Mex rumble of “Santa’s Train” to the sweetly melancholy tones of “Tinsel & Lights.” It thankfully lacks the obnoxious, over-caffeinated vibe that a lot of kids’ Christmas tunes have; instead of sounding like a shopping soundtrack, it’s got the warm, mostly mellow sound of a night at home around the fire, but with enough of a spark (particularly on the nifty “It’s Christmas”) to keep the kids dancing around the tree. Read the rest of this entry

CD Review: Leeny and Tamara, “Sharing the Same Stars”

If you remember Be Nice, the 2008 debut from Leeny and Steve, you’ll be interested to learn that Leeny has swapped partners — she’s now half of Leeny and Tamara — and undergone a huge sonic upgrade for the recently released Sharing the Same Stars.

Stars boasts some sharp production (and instrumental work) from Art Hays, who gives these songs a more layered, fleshed-out feel than their predecessors — and the songs themselves are a little more advanced, too: For example, instead of dealing with the effects of soiling one’s diaper (Be Nice’s “Stinky Diaper”), we get a number about having to hold it long enough to get to a bathroom (the appropriately titled “Hold It”). Just a little more grown up, though; Be Nice hearkened back to the simple, homespun pleasures of the kids’ music of yesteryear, and Stars covers similar lyrical ground. Some children’s albums try to appeal to adults and pre-teens as strongly as younger kids, but Leeny and Tamara are pretty much all about the tykes. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just something you should know before you pop Sharing the Same Stars into the family CD player. Read the rest of this entry

“C’mon” and get a free download from Renee & Jeremy!

We’ve been fans of Renee & Jeremy since they released their stellar first album, It’s a Big World, in 2007 — and we’re pleased as punch to have our hands on an advance copy of the follow-up, C’mon, due out next month. Sadly, the Dadnabbit offices aren’t big enough to host a listening party for the planet, but here’s the next best thing: a free download of a song from the new album, given away by Renee & Jeremy themselves! Grab it now!

DVD Review: “Monsters vs. Aliens: Ginormous Double Pack”

DreamWorks Animation has long been pegged as Pixar’s dumber, more obnoxious cousin — and quite often, the studio’s shabby rep is deserved: if you’re looking for a brightly colored CGI spectacle stuffed full of pop culture gags and fart noises, chances are, whatever DreamWorks has on the menu will scratch your itch. If, on the other hand, you want to show your kids a piece of animation with a ton of lasting value, then you’re probably going to come away frustrated (and left cleaning up all the toys, books, and videogame tie-ins your offspring will end up owning).

In recent years, however, DreamWorks has shown signs of becoming something more than just the house that Shrek built, most notably through the success of Kung Fu Panda, which some critics liked even more than WALL-E. The tie-in friendly 3-D spectacle Monsters vs. Aliens didn’t settle on quite as lofty a critical perch, but it still enjoyed some of the studio’s best reviews, and it’s easy to see why: with thrilling state-of-the-art animation, a voice cast that included Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Rainn Wilson, Will Arnett, Stephen Colbert, and Paul Rudd, and a very funny script that just so happens to be 99% free of doody humor, it’s one of those rare “fun for the whole family” movies that actually ends up living up to its billing. Read the rest of this entry

Blu-ray Review: “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory”

Synopsis: A poor little boy wins a ticket to visit the inside of a mysterious and magical chocolate factory. When he experiences the wonders inside the factory, the boy discovers that the entire visit is a test of his character.

A movie about a wild-eyed reclusive madman who sends the entire world into a candy-scrabbling frenzy as part of an elaborate mindfuck culminating in the transfer of his candy empire to a child, 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is one of the odder “children’s” movies ever made, and one whose survival as a cult favorite was largely dependent on Gene Wilder’s tremendous work in the title role, as well as the movie’s natural appeal to the type of weirdos who grow up to be film directors (see: Burton, Tim). Willy Wonka wasn’t terribly successful when it was released, least of all among parents who questioned its dark overtones and smattering of scary moments (just ask poor Spike Jonze about those folks), but it’s become accepted as a sort of minor classic over the years, particularly since Burton fumbled his Johnny Depp-led Wonka remake a few years ago. Read the rest of this entry

Blu-ray Review: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Diamond Edition”

If you’ve been looking for an excuse to make the jump from DVD to Blu-ray, look no further. Matter of fact, thanks to Disney’s brilliant strategy of bundling DVDs with their Blu-ray releases, you don’t even have to own a Blu-ray player to take advantage of the new face lift the studio has given its 1937 classic — but if you do have one, make sure you put a pillow under your mouth the first time you watch the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Diamond Edition transfer, because your jaw is going to drop.

There have been a fair number of catalog Blu-ray reissues at this point, and consumers have had to resign themselves to the fact that not all hi-def upgrades were created equal — when you’re dealing with source material from more than, say, 20 years ago, you’re going to see a fair number of defects, even after the most painstaking remastering job (see the Batman Blu-ray for an example). Given this, you’d expect the Snow White Blu-ray to be the kind of pleasant-but-not-remarkable upgrade you’d get out of most older films, but you’d be wrong — Disney has been rolling out some truly breathtaking restoration jobs in the last year or so, and Snow White might be the fairest of them all. Is it perfect? Probably not — you can go over any transfer with a magnifying glass and pick out flaws here and there, however minor. But watching Snow White, you won’t want to; you’ll be too busy marveling at just how incredibly lush and beautiful this hand-drawn classic remains more than 70 years after its release. Every feature-length animated film has its roots in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — along with quite a few live-action movies — and this set gives it the fawning respect it deserves. Read the rest of this entry

DVD Review: “The Wizard of Oz 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition”

It’s the most-watched film in history, and unless you’re an extremely unusual person, you’ve seen it more times than you can count — but The Wizard of Oz still somehow never loses its ability to enthrall audiences of all ages. I’m old enough to remember the days when Oz was an annual television tradition for the whole family; I can’t think of it without imagining Thanksgiving celebrations, and thanks to having three younger siblings and a mother who fell under the movie’s spell as a girl, I knew the movie inside and out by the time I was in high school. After my daughter was born, The Wizard of Oz — both the movie and the original L. Frank Baum book — was one of the first gifts she received from my mom, and although we worried that the Wicked Witch and the flying monkeys would freak Sophie out, we eventually caved in and let her watch the movie around her third birthday. Surprise, surprise — she loved it, and it’s become her own most-watched movie and favorite film.

Through her repeat viewings over the last year, I’ve rediscovered The Wizard of Oz myself (we’ve also read her the first 14 books in the series, but that’s another story). There aren’t many things that can hold up to seven decades of the kind of hype Oz has earned, but if there’s any such thing as a perfect movie, this is it — and if there’s a movie worth an incredibly lavish 70th anniversary box featuring books, a watch, and more than 16 hours of bonus material, it’s this one. Read the rest of this entry