New This Week
- For our second installment of State Songs, former Texan Jonathan Meiburg—of the band Shearwater—plays the Roy Orbison classic “It’s Over.”
- Five writers made the South By Southwest pilgrimage this year, and they are kind enough to recap and tweet the experience here.
Don’t Miss
- Inventory celebrated the return of David Bowie by looking at 15 notable David Bowie cameos, and looked at adult-oriented side projects from 11 children’s entertainers.
- In Dispatches From Direct-To-DVD Purgatory, Eric Roberts’ anthropomorphic feline in A Talking Cat?!? ruined all other films for Nathan Rabin.
- Jason Heller considered whether the vinyl revival has gone too far, and Todd VanDerWerff examined what we talk about when we talk about Girls.
- Neal Pollack talked to us about surviving the “alternadad” hype in Money Matters.
- The lackluster Burt Wonderstone inspired us to spend the week with five far better films about magicians in Watch This.
- Noel Murray once again asked himself “Why Is This Commercial?” and whether those cute AT&T commercials are pointed enough to work as advertising.
This week in Great Job, Internet!:
- As of this writing, the Internet has given Rob Thomas $3.3 million to make a Veronica Mars movie and set several Kickstarter records.
- The works of Stanley Kubrick were given an animated tribute, and we discovered that Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, and a bunch of other great comedy people reenacted Sixteen Candles in 2004.
- Louis C.K. demonstrated why he’s not to be interrupted, no matter how nice you think his boots are.
What are we arguing about this week?
In AVQ&A, we discussed the most surprising songs we heard during live performances.
This weekend
See: Pickings are pretty slim when your best bet is The Incredible Burt Wonderstone or Spring Breakers. Stream F Is For Fake instead.
Read: A series of correspondence between a California school librarian and a Hollywood producer make for a pretty neat origin story of the 1983 film The Outsiders.
Listen to: If you haven’t listened to The Next Day, remedy that. Wild Belle’s debut, Isles, is also a good listen.
Watch: Spend the weekend in a heightened emotional state and catch up with The Americans. It’s also a good time to track down some Veronica Mars DVDs and see what all the fuss is about.