Pop – Page 67

Album Reviews 21/12/23

Alice Phoebe Lou, Child’s Play (self-released)

I don’t like getting all class-war on an innocent album that never did anything to me personally, but sometimes weak albums released by highly privileged postmodern artists really get on my nerves, I have to tell ya. I do try to telegraph my moves in that regard, and I’d think by now you know I don’t trust most indie bands these days, given that the Pitchfork Media crowd has become the “essential art” dictators of the potty-trained “professional management class” that’s being bashed to smithereens in leftist intellectual circles. A big-time PR firm is handling this piece of junk, the latest album from this South African-raised white woman whose parents are documentary filmmakers; Lou’s voice was purported to “sound like Judy Garland, Kate Bush, or Angel Olsen” but “mostly her own.” They got the last bit right anyway; she’s a pretty unremarkable fashion-victim waif, and her woozy awkwardness (not to mention absolutely dreadful Lawrence Welk keyboard sound) had me reaching for the Off button every 10 seconds. She strikes me as a third-rate Kate Bush with a decent-enough ear for samples, but, as always, your mileage may vary. D

ABBA, Voyage (OK Good Records)

What a treat it was to witness the Pitchfork Media writer squeezing his brain for the requisite 1,500-word essay on this album! It’s the first one in 40 years from the Swedish pop group that basically owned the 1970s, and so Pitchfork Guy’s obscure shibboleths included nonsense like “glam boogie” and “scandi-disco bounce.” It was so rich and delicious to watch him squirm, when all that’s really to report is that the two dude songwriters still have it, and the singers all sound older. That’s it. There have been a couple of hilariously bad musicals based on the band’s million-year-old tunes, of course, all of which resurged in popularity after the 1990s ABBA Gold album, so it’s not that these people have ever disappeared. Anyhow, the first two songs threaten to go Celtic Woman, especially “When You Danced With Me,” which has an Irish jig feel to it, but most of the balance forward is the usual formula of all-hook tuneage fit for children’s dentist overhead speakers. Same as it ever was, really. A

PLAYLIST

• It’s the least wonderful time of the year for people like me, music columnists who have to spin column-gold out of literally nothing, because there are basically no important new records coming out on Friday, which is Christmas Eve. And why? Well, because it’s time to forget about important things like redundant, overhyped music albums and instead — yuck — feel jolly and bright or whatever, and be sociable — with people! Gross! — and visit. It stinks, man, I just want some albums to write about, so I can fill this column with humor and fascinating news about whatever stupid pop diva or tedious Coldplay-clone-band band, because it’s my job, to fill this space with information and advice that you won’t follow anyway, but at least I try. But here we are again, with the never-ending culture war in happy détente, and me with no albums to write about, because only certified loons (and metal bands) (same thing) would put out an album on Christmas Eve. Fact is, guys, I’ve been through this for nearly 20 years now, scrambling for stuff to write about this holiday week. You see folks, here’s the thing: I must stop Christmas from coming. But how?

• No, seriously, it’s that time of year when I actually want to hear bad new albums from non-musically trained indie bands banging their ting-tinglers and disposable hit singles from whichever lollipop-brained Ariana Grande-of-the-month is honking her gong-zookas. But do I dare even bother webbing into the Album Of The Year site to look for an album to talk about here, or should I talk about my feelings? I don’t know, but here, fine, I’ll look. OMG, guys, I totally found one, it’s Tales From The Pink Forest, by some band or whatever called ID KY! I feel like Yukon Cornelius on that Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer show, like I was chipping and chipping at the barren Google wasteland and finally there it was! Silverrrr! Silver and gold! OK! Now, ahem, let’s just calm down and try to find out what an “ID KY” is; it’s probably something dumb, like some YouTuber playing Panic! At The Disco cover songs on a kazoo (I’m not expecting anything more artistic than that, honestly). OK, great, there’s literally nothing on Google or YouTube about this, so now I feel like Geraldo Rivera after he opened Al Capone’s secret vault and came out with a sales receipt from Walmart or whatever it was. Just great. OK, let’s pretend it was just really dumb polka played on a Charlie Brown toy piano. Aaaand we’re moving, people, let’s go.

• Hmm, it’s some other band-or-whatever-who-cares with a random four-letter name, this time MDMJ! I can’t wait to hear — oh, never mind, the album is called “Album” probably because it doesn’t have a title yet. I’m about to bag it, folks. Look at all you Whos down in Whoville, just laughing at the sad music critic clown making a fool out of himself, so that you can laugh and point. I can’t wait to stuff your Christmas tree up the chimney and have my dog drag it to the top of Mount Crumpit. OK, one last pass and I’m getting a drink, I deserve it.

• We’ll evacuate these dreary premises by closing with — OK, there are no other records supposedly being released on Christmas Eve. None. So let’s just get drunk and listen to the only thing that’s literally coming out on Christmas Day itself! Of course it’s a metal record, Sonic Wolves’s It’s All A Game To Me EP! Ha ha, these three people look like sleepy Hells Angels, and the EP is a two-song “tribute to Lemmy and Cliff Burton!” Figures, there’s no music for me to trash, um, I mean critique, so let’s do a last Jell-O shot and forget this column ever even happened. Happy holidays and whatever!

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

On Animals, by Susan Orlean

On Animals, by Susan Orlean (Avid Reader Press, 237 pages)

Susan Orlean had me at “Shiftless Little Loafers,” her 1996 essay in The New Yorker in which she bemoaned how little babies do to earn their keep.

But then she lost me. I’ve not kept up with Orlean’s work, even as she grew in fame and output. I didn’t read The Orchid Thief in 1998or The Library Book in 2018, and didn’t even know about Red Sox and Bluefish, a 1987 paperback collection of Boston Globe columns on “Things that Make New England New England.”)

My bad.

After reading On Animals, I’ve repented of Orlean negligence and vowed to catch up, even though her new book is the type that generally irritates me: one composed almost entirely of previously published works. These essays were originally published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Smithsonian magazine, and they’re introduced under the unifying umbrella of a 2011 Amazon Kindle Original.

Normally there’s one suitable response to pre-published essays released in book form just before the holiday season: pffft. As in, you want us to pay money for essays we’ve already read for free? However, this is the rare collection that’s worth overlooking the bald money grab, at least for anyone who is, like Orlean describes herself, “animalish.”

Orleans begins by describing an ordinary childhood of animal longing, in which she and her siblings had to overcome their mother’s resistance in order to obtain a dog and a butterscotch-colored mouse. Early on, Orlean displayed a quirky sense of comedy that underlies her work. She writes of the mouse, “I named her Sparky and pretended that she was some sort of championship show mouse, and I made a bunch of fake ribbons and trophies for her and I told people she had won them at mouse shows.”

In college she splurged on an Irish setter puppy, causing her mother to sigh, “Well, for heaven’s sake, Susie. You and your animals.” She married a man who once promised her a donkey for her birthday and who, for Valentine’s Day one year, arranged to have an African lion — “tawney and panting, with soft, round ears and paws as big as baseball mitts” — visit her Manhattan apartment on a leash. (The lion was accompanied by his owner and three off-duty police officers.)

Orlean quotes John Berger, who said that people get attached to animals because they remind us of the agrarian lives that most of us no longer lead, but she says it’s more than that, that animals give a “warm, wonderful, unpredictable texture” to life. As such, she’s spent much of her career writing about animals and spent much of personal life caring for them. (It helps that she lives on 50 acres in California, enabling her to keep creatures such as ducks and donkeys.)

In “The It Bird” Orlean writes of her interests in chickens and tells the fascinating story of how Martha Stewart helped to launch a nationwide chicken craze by publishing glamour shots of chickens in her magazine. “Show Dog” is a brief meditation on the lives of championship dogs, focusing on a boxer from Massachusetts named Biff. (“He has a dark mask, spongy lips, a wishbone-shaped white blaze, and the earnest and slightly careworn expression of a small-town mayor.)

“The Lady and the Tigers” explores the strange life of the New Jersey woman who owned 24 or so tigers, more than Six Flags Wild Safari. “You know how it is — you start with one tiger, then you get another and another, then a few are born and a few die, and you start to lose track of details like exactly how many tigers you have.”

In “Riding High,” Orlean examines the history of the mule, the cross of a male donkey and a female horse that is always sterile because of its uneven number of chromosomes, and in “Where Donkeys Deliver,” she writes of falling in love with “the plain tenderness of their faces and their attitude of patient resignation and even their impenetrable, obdurate temperaments.”

This essay is as much a reflection on the mind-boggling differences in cultures as it is on donkeys alone. Orlean notes that donkeys in America are mostly kept as pets, whereas in other countries, such as Morocco, they remain beasts of burden. She writes of seeing a small, harnessed donkey walking gingerly alone down a steep road in Fez, with no one showing any interest. When she asked someone about this, she was told the donkey “was probably just finished with work and on his way home.”

Other animals that merit their own chapter in this book include rabbits, lions, pandas, oxen, pigeons and whales, with side trips into the business of taxidermy and animal actors in Hollywood.

In her chapter on chickens, Orlean acknowledges a largely ignored problem: Animals live short and brutish lives and then die, giving animalish people self-inflicted pain. She writes of sitting in a vet’s office sobbing after having to have a sick chicken euthanized. (“I eat chicken all the time, so I have no right to morally oppose the killing of a chicken, but I couldn’t kill my own pet.”) And she owns turkeys, “an impulse buy,” but they are pets that will not be eaten. “I am having turkey for Thanksgiving, but not my turkeys,” she writes. (Her husband calls them “landscape animals.”)

Eventually Orlean concludes that animals are “an ideal foil for examining the human condition.” Agreed, but animals are more a romp in the park than a philosophy class. That’s true of On Animals, as well. A

Book Notes

The end of the year is time for celebrating with family and friends, making resolutions for the new year, and hearing wealthy CEOs tell us what books we should have read but probably didn’t.

Bill Gates, for example, had a difficult year PR-wise but still found time to share his five favorite books of the year in a video in which he strolls through a holiday tableau, under what’s probably fake snow, wearing a buffalo-checked lumberjack shirt as if he were a simple man of the people. (You can find this on YouTube.)

Gates, who famously reads 50 books a year, says he looks forward to reading for three hours a day when he’s on vacation. His five recommended books for 2021:

Project Hail Mary (Ballantine, 496 pages) by Andy Weir, a novel by the author of The Martian, about a high-school teacher who is startled to wake up in a different star system. (Gates read the book over a weekend, he said.)

Hamnet (Knopf, 320 pages) by Maggie O’Farrell, speculative fiction about William Shakespeare’s life; Hamnet was the name of his son, who died at age 11.

A Thousand Brains, a New Theory of Intelligence (Basic, 288 pages) by Jeff Hawkins, who is best known as the co-inventor of the PalmPilot, one of the first handheld computers. In this book he delves into artificial intelligence and where it’s headed.

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race (Simon & Schuster, 560 pages), by Walter Isaacson, probes the development and ethical quandaries presented by CRISPR gene editing technology.

Klara and the Sun (Knopf, 320 pages) by Kazuo Ishiguro is a thought-provoking novel about a specific form of artificial intelligence, the personal robot engineered to be a companion to humans.

For what it’s worth, we, too, loved Klara and The Sun, and gave it an A back in the spring. So we’re more interested in what Ishiguro believes to be the best books of the year than Gates. There’s no heartwarming video involved, but here they are, courtesy of the UK newspaper The Guardian, which did a roundup of several authors’ favorites.

The Premonition, A Pandemic Story (W.W. Norton, 320 pages) by Michael Lewis; Failures of State (Mudlark, 432 pages) by Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott; The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: Stories (Hogarth, 208 pages) by Mariana Enriquez; and Spike, The Virus vs. the People by Jeremy Farrar and Anjana Ahuja (Profile Books, 253 pages).

Book Events

Author events

• MIDDLE GRADE AUTHOR PANELFeaturing middle grade authors Padma Venkatraman, Barbara Dee, Leah Henderson, Aida Salazar and Lindsey Stoddard. Virtual event hosted by Toadstool Bookshops in Peterborough, Nashua and Keene. Sat., Dec. 18, 4 p.m. Via Zoom. Visit toadbooks.com.

• JOHN NICHOLS Author presents Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiters. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Tues., Feb. 1, 7 p.m. Via Zoom. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• GARY SAMPSON AND INEZ MCDERMOTT Photographer Sampson and art historian McDermott discuss New Hampshire Now: A Photographic Diary of Life in the Granite State. Sat., Feb. 19, 9:45 to 11:45 a.m. Peterborough Town Library, 2 Concord St., Peterborough. Visit monadnockwriters.org.

• TIMOTHY BOUDREAU Author presents on the craft of writing short stories. Sat., Jan. 15, 9:45 to 11:45 a.m. Peterborough Town Library, 2 Concord St., Peterborough. Visit monadnockwriters.org.

Poetry

• CAROL WESTBURG AND SUE BURTON Virtual poetry reading hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Thurs., Jan. 20, 7 p.m. Via Zoom. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email elizabethw@goffstownlibrary.com or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email bookclub@belknapmill.org.

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email information@nashualibrary.org or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

• FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

At the Sofaplex 21/12/16

The Power of the Dog (R)

Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst.

Jane Campion writes and directs this movie based on a 1967 novel by Thomas Savage.

Brothers from a prosperous ranching family, Phil (Cumberbatch) and George (Jesse Plemons) run their ranch together, with Phil in particular getting into the dusty, gritty work of tending to the cattle. During one of their cattle drives, George starts a relationship with Rose (Dunst), the widowed owner of the inn where they stop to eat and sleep. Their relationship starts in part because George finds her crying over what a homophobic jerk Phil was to her college-age son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who had served as waiter to the ranching party.

George and Rose get married, enraging Phil, who relates to his new relatives only via psychological torture — first of Rose, already shaky about marrying in to the wealthy family, and later of Phil.

The Power of the Dog is a beautifully shot, (largely) understatedly performed, expertly scored movie that quietly ratchets up the tension as it shows the wildfire-like destruction of performative toxic masculinity, which Phil not only embodies but encourages in the ranch hands around him. These aspects, ruminating on them, are what stand out to me as I think back on the movie.

However.

As I watched the movie, what I often felt more was how hard this movie was Oscar-ing, just straining and stretching with every fiber to “for your consideration” with all its elegantly matte Important Movie might. I mean it is beautiful and Cumberbatch does create a fascinating character to watch and I definitely had that “just before an explosion” feeling the whole time I watched it. This movie is good, maybe even great, but it also felt like it needed something to pull it out of the space where you can see the words on the page of the book it’s from and into a more organic living, breathing world. Nevertheless, A-. Available on Netflix.

Tick, Tick … Boom! (PG-13)

Andrew Garfield, Alexandra Shipp.

Before he wrote the hugely popular musical Rent, before he wrote the show that would become Tick, Tick … Boom!, the late Jonathan Larson (played here by Garfield) struggled to get attention for Superbia, a futuristic musical that Wikipedia says was meant to be a rock opera retelling of 1984. This movie, based on the one-man (plus band) show that would eventually become Tick, Tick … Boom!, tells the story of his work to put on a presentation of Superbia while dealing with changing relationships with friends and his girlfriend Susan (Shipp) and with his looming 30th birthday, which he has set as a sort of life-accomplishment deadline. (Stephen Sondheim already had a Broadway hit by 30, Larson keeps saying.)

My feelings about this musical changed in the days after I saw it. When I saw it, it felt like an affable if rough, not-quite-for-me tale with a somewhat unlikable performance at its center. But, after the Nov. 26 death of Sondheim, it started to feel more like a heartfelt tribute to Sondheim and the community of New York City theater itself. The song “Sunday,” which has more Broadway cameos than a Law & Order marathon, is a direct homage to Sondheim and he has a strong presence throughout the movie (he is played onscreen by Bradley Whitford, except during a final scene when it is Sondheim’s actual voice that we’re hearing). I felt like I was watching director Lin-Manuel Miranda express his gratitude and fondness for the lyricist/composer as much as I was watching Sondheim’s influence on Larson’s work.

I liked the nitty-gritty details of putting on the presentation of Superbia that is supposed to help it reach the Broadway stage (Jonathan takes part in a focus group to earn $75 to pay for an extra musician at his presentation) to the overall artistic struggle (at one point, his agent, played by Judith Light, explains that writing is just throwing one thing after another against the wall and hoping something sticks). But I never quite warmed to Garfield’s performance; he brings a kind of careless self-absorbed smugness to the character that just made it hard to sympathize with. And while I think some of this is part of the character — learning to see beyond himself is part of the Larson character’s journey — I don’t feel like he was meant to be as off-putting as he frequently seems.

In the moments where Garfield brings the volume down, I could see more of a real person and putting that guy in the fantastical world of song, dance and 1990s Broadway feels more winning than what we get from him through much of the film. B Available on Netflix.

Single All the Way (TV-PG)

Michael Urie, Philemon Chambers.

Also, Barry Bostwick, Jennifer Coolidge and Kathy Najimy.

This perfectly delightful Christmas cookie of a rom-com features some classic ingredients — going home for the holidays (to New Hampshire!), a pretend boyfriend, a quirky family, a blind date, the realization that your soulmate was Right There All Along. L.A.-based Peter (Urie) breaks up with his most recent boyfriend just before Christmas and asks best friend Nick (Chambers) to come home with him and pretend to Peter’s matchmaking family that he and Peter finally got together. What is extra wonderful about this movie is that Nick (who has quietly felt more for Peter than he thinks Peter feels for him) doesn’t engage in this rom-com wackiness, and throughout this sweet confection people just basically behave like normal humans (at least, by movie standards). They talk about what they’re thinking and explain their feelings and generally act out of love and respect. Crazy, I know! I know you have a lot of options out there when you need holiday silliness and joy to accompany gift wrapping or avoiding gift wrapping but Single All the Way is so enjoyable that it can be your post-chores relaxing-with-a-warm-boozy-drink treat. B+ Available on Netflix.

Ciao, Alberto (G)

Jack Dylan Grazer, Marco Barricelli.

This eight-minute short, featuring the characters from Luca, follows Alberto (voice of Grazer) as he adjusts to life with Massimo (voice of Barricelli), the fisherman, now that Julia and Luca are away at school. My kids enjoyed this short, sweet (and, like Luca, absolutely beautiful) film of Alberto earnestly trying to impress Massimo with his hard work but messing up, often with chaos-creating results. But I almost feel like this is even more a film for the parents; it offers a reminder that behind every kitchen covered in tomato sauce or flaming rowboat is a kid whose intentions (oftentimes, good intentions) outstripped their abilities. The climax is a scene that ends with one almost shockingly perfect line of dialogue. A Available on Disney+.

Olaf Presents (TV-PG)

Josh Gad.

Gad voices Olaf, the snowman of Frozen movies fame, in this series of shorts, which can be viewed individually as four-minute movies (really just two minutes, with another two minutes of credits) or as one 12-minute short. Riffing on the scene from Frozen 2 when Olaf gives a short dramatic reenactment of the plot of the first movie, these shorts feature Olaf, with occasional assists from Sven the reindeer and from the snow monster (who the internet tells me is named Marshmallow), recapping The Little Mermaid, Moana, The Lion King, Aladdin and Tangled. Each one is a goofy delight, as much for the meta commentary of the movies themselves as for snowman silliness. A Available on Disney+.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (PG)

Voices of Brady Noon, Ethan William Childress.

The first of the popular Jeff Kinney books gets a new, animated adaptation that runs a kid-friendly 58 minutes long.

Greg (voice of Noon) and his longtime friend Rowley (voice of Childress) are terrified by the start of middle school — there are the kids who are shaving, the popularity that runs on different rules than elementary school, the politics of the lunch room and the terror of the “cheese touch” (a kind of cooties caused by a moldy piece of cheese that has sat on the basketball courts since Greg’s high school brother was at middle school). Along the way, Greg starts to fear that Rowley’s “elementary-school-ish” interests will hurt their coolness cred.

The animation is bright and round and has a nice comic-y appearance. The movie does a good job of addressing the drama of the changing friendships between elementary school and middle school and the sudden self-consciousness that sets in. While there are some cartoony hijinks, the movie is much more about these issues than just pure silliness — putting the optimum viewing audience at more the late-elementary school and up level. B Available on Disney+.

Trolls Holiday in Harmony (TV-PG)

Voices of Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake.

The new trolls of Trolls World Tour show up in this 30-minute holiday special whose main storylines include Branch (Timberlake) and Poppy (Kendrick) getting each other Secret Santa gifts and Tiny Diamond (voice of Keenan Thompson) trying to regain his flow after he finds himself at a loss for rhymes. Probably that this short exists and offers a half hour of kid entertainment is the most notable thing about it. It gives you songs, some troll visual fun and a few moments of quirkiness. B- Available on Hulu.

A Castle for Christmas (TV-G)

Brooke Shields, Cary Elwes.

Romance author Sophie Brown (Shields) travels to her late father’s hometown in Scotland to escape the fan fury over her recent novel, which kills off the romantic hero of her long-running series. His death is perhaps a reflection of the end of Sophie’s real-life marriage and her general sense of unmoored-ness. When she arrives in Scotland and sees Dun Dunbar Castle, the large manor house her father’s family were caretakers of, she decides she’s home. And, lucky for her, the current duke, the grumpy also divorced Myles (Elwes), is in financial trouble and reluctantly looking to sell. Or perhaps he can have his castle and his debts cleared too if he can convince Sophie to agree to some only-in-a-rom-com terms: she lives at the castle with him for a few months to learn how to take care of it, but if she leaves before this training period is over she forfeits her down payment.

Are these two people who are initially antagonistic going to warm to each other? The total lack of mystery about this question doesn’t dampen the mild enjoyment of watching exactly everything you think will happen happen exactly as you think it will. B- Available on Netflix.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas (TV-14)

Jane Levy, Skylar Astin.

The TV show Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, which had two seasons on NBC, now has this holiday movie on, of all things, the Roku Channel. I didn’t watch the show but the beginning of this movie sums things up: Zoey (Levy) can hear people’s “heart songs” — their hopes and fears and other emotional struggles expressed via song. Recently, her boyfriend Max (Astin) also gained the ability to hear heart songs and, like Zoey, tries to use this knowledge to improve things for people like Zoey’s mom, Maggie (Mary Steenburgen), still dealing with the death of Zoey’s dad Mitch (Peter Gallagher). Zoey is also still dealing with his death: this is the first Christmas that the family will be without him and she is intensely determined that everything they do be exactly the way he would have done it.

I don’t know that this movie put Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist on the top of my must-watch list (both seasons are available on Peacock) but the movie is affable, sweet, lightly funny and, if you like a good dance number, enough of a good time. I like so many of the actors here — Levy, Astin, Steenburgen and also Alex Newell (who plays Zoey’s friend) and Andrew Leeds and Alice Lee, who play her brother and his wife — that I was willing to stick it out through some of the too-sugary elements or moments when it felt like the words “The Message of This Story” were flashing on screen. B- Available on the Roku Channel.

Album Reviews 21/12/16

Tulip Tiger x Garrett Noel, Synth Xmas II (Give/Take Records)

Funny, right after I wrapped up this week’s Playlist thingie, in which I bemoaned the fact that no public relations goblins had sent me any holiday albums to review this year, this one just came in, from a bicoastal lo-fi hip-hop collaborative duo. Just to put things in context, big-beat aficionado Tulip (Augustus Watkins) is based in Los Angeles and Prague, modern psychedelia guy Noel’s from Baltimore, and this is their take on a set of eight old Christmas classics, “reimagined in tranquil, instrumental, electronic arrangements.” Very true, that; the guys have selected from the chillest of vintage chestnuts: “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “Silent Night” to name two, rendering them in tasteful 1980s-synthpop cheese and adding things like glitchy noises, bell samples, etc. The overall effect is cloudy, woozy and, well, edgy, evoking high-end backgrounding for fashion outlet malls; in other words, it’s very unobtrusive but redolent of seasonal spirit. Very nice. A

PLAYLIST

• The new albums set to be released on Dec. 17 are in our scope today, folks! I haven’t even looked at the list yet, because that has as much appeal to me as watching my dentist prepare his syringe of Novacaine. Like, I know it’s coming, and there will be “bootleg” albums for collectors and massively expensive box sets for people who’d rather have albums than a car, but what’s odd to me is that I haven’t been made aware of any new holiday albums as of yet. OK, lemme go look at the list of — holy crow, there are almost no new albums coming out on the 17th, let alone holiday albums! What the heck am I supposed to do here? You know, that always happens during these last weeks of the year, and the only bands putting out albums are metal bands, because there’s a new metal album born every minute. With the big holidays coming so soon, the editors should just let me fill up this column with jokes, nursery rhymes and bedtime stories, so at least there’d be — wait, wait, I found one, Califas Worldwide, from California quartet Hed PE, a the band that’s known for “its eclectic genre-crossing style, predominantly in the fusion of gangsta rap and punk rock it has termed ‘G-punk,’ but also for its reggae-fused music.” Great, whatever, I’m just glad I have something music-related to talk about in this music column (I’ll bet next week is going to be even worse). So there’s a single, called “Not Now,” which features the mad metal-rappin’ skillz of some collective (or just one dude, it’s impossible to tell from their Facebook, which, trust me, annoys me a million times more than it does you) called The Final Clause of Tacitus. So the overall effect of the song is Rage Against The Machine with no budget; it’s not bad I suppose, but I’d have to say — oh, you don’t care about this either, it’s not Tom Morello or anything, just some guys who sound like they won a football pool and decided to spend it doofing around in a recording studio while the engineer ate Funyuns and took naps. Let’s forget this and try to find something normal, not that I think there’s a snowball’s chance of that happening.

• Praise be, gang, there’s another one, titled Food For Thought, from some rapper lady named Che Noir! Unless the Brooklyn Vegan blog-site has no idea what it’s talking about (which is always a possibility), she is from Buffalo, New York, a place that Trip Advisor says is mostly inhabited by clinically depressed football fans and Loch Ness Monsters. OK, let me get down with this awesome tune. Hmm, that’s original, she starts out her rap by saying “Yeah,” you know, in this really rappy tone, and then she’s spittin’ mad words and swears. She’s pretty edgy I suppose, but her voice is gentle-ish, like if Dionne Warwick were a rapper. The beat is this dumb 1980s synth-cheese thing. I don’t hate it, mostly because I just feel sorry for it. Aaaand we’re movin’, folks, let’s keep trying to find something normal.

• OK, I give up, there’s not even a heavy metal Christmas album, just no albums at all. Looks like I’ll just do a bedtime story and then tuck you in. OK, so this little bear got lost in the woods looking for special mushrooms, see, and — wait! Wait! Look! Looky yonder! You’ll never believe it, a new album from 1950s rock ’n’ roll icon Chuck Berry, Live From Blueberry Hill! Why am I being given this gift of column-filling news? Well, it’s because the 17th would have been Chuck’s 95th birthday! It’s dumb but I’ll take it, this wonderful collection of live versions of “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Sweet Little Sixteen” and “Johnny B. Goode,” I will take it, as a Christmas miracle! God bless us, guys, every one!

RETRO PLAYLIST

I’ve obviously slacked this year as far as throwing you nice people a few recommendations for holiday music buying. I almost forgot again this week, which would definitely been bad, but by chance I happened upon a column I’d written this very week in 2009, and it started out with a suggestion for, of all things, a country music compilation, to wit: “Howzabout this for a compilation: Dim Lights, Thick Smoke & Hillbilly Music: Country Hit Parade 1951. Comes out on Tuesday [11 years ago, mind you], which gives you no time to find it, but you should try, so that you can hear awesome old garbage like “Shot Gun Boogie” by Tennessee Ernie Ford. We’ve all gone old-school anyway, so why not just reboot the whole thing and start off with bands that had to sing into toasters while sticking their fingers into light sockets so the tape-gizmo thing would record it, because they did not have our awesome technology, which has turned us all into people nobody can trust.”

Boy, could someone tell me when I’m acting cynical, would you folks, I can’t stop myself. But then again, I have every excuse in the book, because 99 times out of a hundred, holiday albums are usually just comprised of old bands doing versions of old carols you’re already sick of hearing. See, what I listen to myself this time of year is music that’s either Christmas-y sounding or actually peripheral to my chosen pagan frostbite-holiday. For the former, you can’t beat Enya’s Paint The Sky With Stars, a compilation of her more popular “hits.” As you may or may not know, she multi-tracks her voice hundreds of times in the studio, which means we’ll never see her play live, because you’d need 100 singing Enyas to accomplish it. But the music itself is reflective, pretty and spiritual. My holiday-sounding faves are “Anywhere Is” and “Storms in Africa,” but almost all are very nice.

As for the latter, the Boston Ballet Orchestra’s version of The Nutcracker is a CD I keep in the car every year, from Thanksgiving to Dec. 26. The CD is missing a few things, like the teddy bear’s dance, but other than that it’s such a peach, especially if you’ve ever seen it live. It seems to be out of stock at bostonballet.org, but it’s worth hunting down.

At the Sofaplex 21/12/09

8-Bit Christmas (PG)

Neil Patrick Harris, Steve Zahn.

I’ve seen this movie described as an update of A Christmas Story and it definitely has shades of that, though it may be even more family-friendly. Here, present-day dad Jake Doyle (Harris) tells his young, iPhone-wanting daughter Annie (Sophia Reid-Gantzert) about a Christmas back in the 1980s when he desperately wanted a Nintendo. His parents, Kathy (June Diane Raphael) and John (Zahn), go from not exactly knowing how to pronounce “Nintendo” to being violently opposed to ever having one in their house. Young Jake (Winslow Fegley) and his friends try a variety of schemes to ensure that one of them will wind up with a Nintendo while Jake’s younger sister Lizzy (Bellaluna Resnick) works on getting that equally rare item, the Cabbage Patch Kid.

I thoroughly enjoyed this family comedy, with its Harris-narrated tale of life in the 1980s, occasionally edited to explain to his daughter that “of course all kids wore bike helmets.” The story features plucky kid-quests in search of the game system or the money to buy it while also offering really good-hearted examinations of kid social relationships — the bullies, the perceived weirdos, the habitual liars. It also does a good job with the age-old struggle between the “why can’t you and your friends just play outside” parents and the “X piece of tech is the Most Important Thing Ever” kids. A Available on HBO Max.

A Boy Called Christmas (PG)

Henry Lawfull, voice of Stephen Merchant.

Maggie Smith is the dour-seeming great-aunt of three gloomy and grieving children who comes to their house to babysit. Though they want nothing to do with Christmas this year, having recently lost their mother, she settles in to tell them a story about a boy named Nikolas (Lawfull) who lives deep in the woods in Finland in olden days. The king (Jim Broadbent) asks people to go on quests to the farthest reaches of his realm in search of something that will bring magic and hope into people’s lives. Nikolas’ father (Michiel Huisman) sets out in search of a magical place that Nikolas’ mother used to talk about, Elfhelm. After running away from the horrible aunt (Kristen Wiig) left to care for him, Nikolas also goes in search of his father and Elfhelm, taking along with him Miika (Merchant), a mouse that, to his great surprise, he’s taught how to talk.

Along the way they help a reindeer that Nikolas starts calling Blitzen and they meet a community of elves who are part of the resistance to an oppressive new elf regime run by Mother Vodol (Sally Hawkins).

This is a darker live-action Christmas tale, with orphans and parents who have died and discussions of grief and sadness. But in that dark fairy tale way, and for kids maybe in the 9-years-old-and-up range who don’t mind that kind of story, the movie is also sweet, adventure-packed and straightforward in how it deals with kids’ emotions. I think Maggie Smith’s narration, with its Princess Bride-style interruptions, helps sell that particular mood of kids working through stuff and of kids learning how to stay hopeful in the face of a world that isn’t always about loving moms and happy elves. B+ Available at Netflix.

Waffles + Mochi’s Holiday Feast (TV-Y)

The humans here include Tracee Ellis Ross, Samin Nosrat and Mrs. O (Michelle Obama), the owner of the market where Waffles and Mochi normally hang out to learn about food. In this half-hour holiday special, the market is closed for the holiday season and Waffles and Mochi, enamored of all the talk about special holiday foods, tell their friends it’s Freezie Day and accidentally invite the whole gang over for a Freezie Day feast. This leads Mochi to set out around the world to learn about a few winter-solstice-season celebrations and gather some holiday treats while back at Waffles’ house the guests talk about their own cultural winter holiday traditions. Like the show Waffles + Mochi, the holiday special is the right mix of learning, puppet-y fun, food, silliness and sweetness. B+ Available on Netflix.

Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas (TV-Y)

Voices of Justin Fletcher, Kate Harbour.

Shaun, his sheep friends, the dog who watches after them and their farmer, with another harebrained scheme to make money, return in this charming 30-minute Christmas-themed special. The farmer’s attempts to sell soda at a local Christmas fair and the littlest sheep’s curiosity about gifts come together, resulting in the whole flock riding a Santa sleigh on their way to heist-like hijinks at the home of a little girl who thinks she’s been gifted a robot sheep. As usual, this story has no real words, just lots of grunts and meeps and British-y noises. Sheep silliness is the star of this very all-ages-friendly holiday fare with, as always, top-notch Aardman animation. A Available on Netflix.

Gift Guide – A book and a …

Gift ideas for book lovers

As holiday gifts go, you can’t do much better than books. They’re easy to wrap, cheap to mail, and for the most part, unperishable.

That said, they’re so easy to give that givers of books can come off looking cheap, not so much for the money they spent but for the lack of effort involved. But that’s a problem easily solved by adding a “plus one” to your gift — a complementary knickknack or two. (Think a decorative spatula attached to a cookbook.) Conversely, a book can add physical heft to an otherwise generous gift that looks unsubstantial by itself, such as a ticket to a game or a concert.

Here’s a guide to the best books for everyone on your list; we did the heavy lifting for you. Buy local if you can because Jeff Bezos is set for the year. (Note: These suggestions are all new releases, or new in paperback, although publishing information is for hardcover editions. Don’t give paperbacks if you can help it.)

For football enthusiasts: History Through the Headsets: Inside Notre Dame’s Playoff Run During the Craziest Season in College Football History by Reed Gregory and John Mahoney (Triumph, 256 pages) or It’s Better to Be Feared, The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness by Seth Wickersham (Liveright, 528 pages). Plus one: game ticket or team-branded merch.

For baseball lovers: The Baseball 100 by Joe Posnanski (Avid Reader Press, 880 pages) Plus one: MLB Ballpark Traveler’s Map from the website and catalog Uncommon Goods.

For hockey freaks: Beauties: Hockey’s Greatest Untold Stories by James Duthie (HarperCollins, 320 pages). Plus one: warm gloves and a hat.

For horse lovers: The Last Diving Horse in America, Rescuing Gamal and Other Animals by Cynthia A. Branigan (Pantheon, 288 pages) and/or Perestroika in Paris by Jane Smiley (Knopf, 288 pages). Plus one: (for horse owners) bag of peppermint horse treats or (for non-horse owners) gift certificate for a riding lesson or trail ride.

For dog lovers: A Dog’s World, Imagining the Lives of Dogs in a World Without Humans by Jessica Pierce and Marc Bekoff (Princeton University Press, 240 pages). Plus one: nice leash.

For lovers of animals in general: On Animals, by Susan Orlean (Avid Reader Press, 256 pages) or National Geographic’s Photo Ark Wonders (National Geographic, 400 pages). Plus one: ticket to local zoo, or animal socks from the World Wildlife Fund.

For music lovers: The Beatles: Get Back, edited by John Harris (Callaway Arts & Entertainment, 240 pages) or Rock Concert, an Oral History as Told by the Artists, Backstage Insiders, and Fans Who Were There by Marc Myers (Grove Press, 400 pages). Plus one: gift subscription to Spotify or Apple music.

For lovers of comics: The DC Comics Encyclopedia by Matthew K. Manning and Jim Lee (DK, 384 pages). Plus one: vintage comic book or gift card to Newbury Comics.

For the Fox News enthusiast: All-American Christmas by Rachel Campos-Duffy and Sean Duffy (Broadside Books, 272 pages). Plus one: American flag.

For the MSNBC fan: Rachel Maddow, a Biography by Lisa Rogak (Thomas Dunne Books, 288 pages). Plus one: MSNBC baseball cap from the network’s online store.

For lovers of literature: A Literary Holiday Cookbook, Festive Meals for the Snow Queen, Gandalf, Sherlock, Scrooge and Book Lovers Everywhere by Alison Walsh and Haley Stewart (Skyhorse, 272 pages). Plus one: gift certificate to a local bookstore or fingerless gloves from the website Storiarts.

For fans of The Sopranos: Woke Up This Morning, the Definitive Oral HIstory of The Sopranos by Michael Imperioli and Steve Schriripa (William Morrow, 528 pages). Plus one: bag of ziti or pasta machine.

For fans of The Office: Welcome to Dunder Mifflin, The Ultimate Oral History of The Office by Brian Baumgartner and Ben Silverman (Custom House, 464 pages). Plus one: Dunder Mifflin socks or shot glasses.

For car enthusiasts: A Man and His Car, Iconic Cars and Stories from the Men Who Love Them by Matt Hranek (Artisan, 240 pages). Plus one: gas card or box of Armor All cleaning wipes.

For birders: The Birds of America, a reissued work by the late John James Audubon, with an introduction by David Allen Sibley (Prestel, 448 pages). Plus one: bird-seed wreath.

For ski buffs: 100 Slopes of a Lifetime, The World’s Ultimate Ski and Snowboard Destinations, by Gordy Megroz (National Geographic, 400 pages). Plus one: ski mittens or box of hand warming packets.

For runners: Running is a Kind of Dreaming: A Memoir by J.M. Thompson (HarperOne, 320 pages). Plus one: Yaxtrax Pros and a stick of BodyGlide.

For bicyclists: The Cycling Chef: Recipes for Getting Lean and Fueling the Machine (Bloomsbury Sport, 192 pages) Plus one: fingerless cycling gloves.

For TikTok addicts: Sympathy. Don’t enable.

For new parents: How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t ***holes by Melinda Wenner Moyer (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 352 pages) Plus one: bottle of vodka and earplugs.

For writers or writer-wannabees: The venerable guide to selling your work released a new edition in November: The Writer’s Market 100th Edition (Writer’s Digest Books, 912 pages). Plus one: a journal or monogrammed pen.

For artists and illustrators: The Writers and Artists Yearbook 2022 (Bloomsbury Yearbooks, 816 pages) Plus one: a box of fine pencils or a sketchpad.

For travel buffs: 1,000 Perfect Weekends: Great Getaways Around the Globe by George Stone (National Geographic, 704 pages) Plus one: a luggage tag or airline gift card.

For foodies: Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer’s Guide by Cecily Wong and Dylan Thuras (Workman Publishing, 448 pages) or The Great British Baking Show: A Bake for All Seasons (Mobius, 288 pages). Plus one: a restaurant gift certificate or gift card for a delivery app.

For everyone else: A generous gift certificate to your local bookseller (or local to the recipient). Plus one: a box of bookplates.

You’re welcome, and happy holidays.

Book Events

Author events

• SIMON BROOKS Author presents a storytelling event for ages 16 to adult. Sat., Dec. 11, 6:15 p.m. 185 Main St., Hopkinton. Reservations required. Call 406-4880.

• KATHRYN HULICKAuthor presents Welcome to the Future. Sat., Dec. 11, 2 p.m. Toadstool Bookshop, 12 Depot Square, Peterborough. Visit toadbooks.com.

• MEET THE AUTHOR EVENT The Belknap Mill Page Turners Book Club presents authors from Laconia, the Lakes Region and throughout New England, including Larry Frates, MJ Pettengill, Christopher Beyer, Cathy Waldron, Ian Raymond, Heidi Smith and Courtney Parsons, Janice Petrie, Rose-Marie Robichaud, Jane Rice and others. Authors’ books will be for sale. Sat., Dec. 11, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Belknap Mill, 25 Beacon St. East, Laconia. Visit belknapmill.org.

• AUTHOR BOOK SIGNING Featuring New Hampshire authors Dan Szcznesy, Jerry Lofaro, Simon Brooks, Byron Carr. 185 Main St., Hopkinton. Sun., Dec. 12, noon to 2 p.m. Call 406-4880.