Music Movie Mondays: Catch and Release

 

One Sentence Review: A better-than-it-should-be movie with a rocking soundtrack.

Full Review: I have a deep, dark secret to admit: I love the movie Catch and Release. A movie snob to the core, normally, I would laugh it off as garbage and pretend I hated it, while secretly watching the DVD several times on the sly, but I can't this time. You need to see this movie. Most critical reviews I have read on the movie give it extremely negative reviews (we're talking 1's out of 5's and C-'s). Don't believe them.

Rewind. You're thinking, what does this have to do with music? Catch and Release has an awesome soundtrack, which I will get to momentarily. 

The movie itself centers around a woman whose fiance dies a few days before her wedding. As she tries to figure out life without him, she begins to find out secrets from his past. After moving in with a couple of his buddies and the return of his old high school friend, things get intense all around, and that's about as far as I'm going to take it with the synopsis, but it involves secret money, a kid, and unexpected love interests. It's not a romantic comedy, but it's not a drama. It lies in the space between the two and does so quite well.

Jennifer Garner is likable as per usual. Timothy Olyphant, her fiance's old high school buddy who comes home from LA, is ridiculously attractive and charming. He's a solid actor that does well even in mediocre flicks. Kevin Smith is actually funny. Don't send me angry notes about how great he is. What's so funny about Kevin Smith aside from original Silent Bob stuff? Not great. Maybe his Emmy (or Gemini since we are talking Canadian show, eh?) worthy performance in Degrassi? Probably not.

So, back to the music. 

The soundtrack is loaded with laid back jams from Joshua Radin and Gary Jules. It also has rocking tracks from Gomez and Deathcab for Cutie. It is a soundtrack worth buying, if you don't already own half the tunes. I love the Radin song that I featured in the live video clip earlier today and the Gomez tune "These 3 Sins" that plays on the way to a day of chilling by the river. Awesome picks all around.

Great soundtrack and surprisingly good movie. Check em both out. It's worth your time, even if you have to lie about it afterward.

You Could Fast Forward Through: I don't love the weird semi-relationship that happens between Smith and Juliet Lewis (especially a creepy moment that you can figure out when you see it) or her extremely annoying kid that I would give extreme eye rolls (they mean biz) to if I saw them out in public and he behaves like he does for 90% of his scenes. Also, the ending should be better than it is. It's pretty cliche, which is sad, because you get the idea that the movie never catches on that it could be great.

You Have To Watch: A smoking hot kiss between Garner and Olyphant. I wasn't going to spoil it for you, but if you don't get where the movie is headed about twenty minutes in, you should question your reasoning skills. It's so awesome that I have found the clip and provide it for you. Hot. Hot. Hot. 

 

 

 

Also, the cinematography is beautiful. It's so nice that you'll probably look up costs to travel to Colorado as soon as the movie is over. 

 

Fun Fact: Jason Lee was originally offered the role that eventually went to Kevin Smith and even though I love Jason Lee, I gotta say, Smith owned this role. Props to him. Dude's had a rough week. 

 Take a stroll on over to Amazon and check out the soundtrack.

Live Video Clip of the Day: Joshua Radin Live in South Carolina

My obsession with the Olympics has rendered this blog empty in the past week. Lo siento.


Here's a little bit for you and I promise I have a few entries up my sleeve for the week, maybe even another today if you're ultra lucky.

Here's a sweet little tune from a few years back. I've been on the Joshua Radin bandwagon forever and I'm pretty pumped that I've had three different people ask me if I've heard of him in the past month. Dude should be huge.




Go check out some of his stuff at Amazon:

The Killers Going on Indefinite Hiatus and I Cry Myself to Sleep

News broke a couple weeks ago, when The Killers canceled several shows in Asia, that the band is going on "hiatus".

Please let this be part time. With Panic! at The Disco breaking in half last year, the unsure times of Fall Out Boy, and now this, guyliner may just be a thing of the past.

Of course, I care much more about this band than the other two in that last statement. They're so awesome and always coming up with new stuff from album to album. I have really loved getting to see them progress as a band since 2004, when buying their album Hot Fuss became one of the best musical moments of my life. I've tried putting into words how much I love this band for the past hour, but I can't come up with anything. They're so good, they render me speechless.

Hey, guys, I know everyone needs a break, but please let this be a short term thing. If I have to live a life without The Killers, I don't know what I'll do with myself.

Until they reunite, I will be playing "Smile Like You Mean It" on permanent loop...in my heart.

Live Video Clip of the Day: Muse on Later...with Jools Holland, 2009

Just sweet.



Here's the mp3:
Undisclosed Desires

Note to Fans of Guyliner...Sadness May Soon Fill Ye Bones

Did you like totally hear the news, that OMG, Fall Out Boy is like totally omfg...breaking up?


Generic teen talk aside, this is actually a true story. The future of FOB remains uncertain as the players involved are "in different places", which is always a grim sign.

Like 'em or not, Fall Out Boy has had a major impact on the popular culture of the current times, not only in music, but in many other aspects. They were one of the originators of the guyliner craze, as well as skinny jeans for dudes and the revival of the flannel.

First Aerosmith and now Fall Out Boy. It's break up season for bands.

Wait...The Grammy's Were Yesterday?

So, this blog has been lacking a bit lately and totally missed out on writing a Grammy post, but in the anticipation that things will be picking up soon, here's a couple funny nuggets for ya.

• How about that performance by Drake, Lil Wayne, and Eminem? Seemed pretty sweet, especially all the silence 
• Taylor Swift made a boo boo, after a pretty sick night, including beating out Beyonce and Lady Gaga for album of the year.
• Speaking of which, Beyonce and the GaGa looked pretty much delighted when Swift won. Of course, by delighted, I mean terribly pissed. 
• Man, there a lot more, but I just read a humorous play by play of the event, which you can see here. It's much funnier than anything I could come up with.

Stay tuned for more entries this week. I swear.