We had a great time at Passion Pit last night, amongst the lusty teenagers and fog machines. We knew the show was off to a good start as soon as Mister Heavenly took the stage, a brand new power group consisting of Honus Honus of Man Man (we were lucky enough to catch a Man Man show earlier this fall) Nick Diamond of The Unicorns and Islands, and Joe Plummer of Modest Mouse. Sheesh. more ›

GODDAMN STRAIGHT! Do you think the fans come out to see goals? NO! They want to see defenders cowardly hammering the ball deep into the stands! And then, more likely that not, collapsing as if they have suffered an Endy-Chavez-like knee injury. Kasey Keller is such a defense-oriented hard-ass, he can't even enjoy his own teammate's goal. more ›

Next up was Juno, the latest comedy from Jason Reitman. We loved his first feature, Thank You for Smoking, and had heard nothing but good buzz about this flick, which is kinda Knocked Up meets Superbad, if Judd Apatow stopped focusing so much on male friendships and paid more attention to the pregnant girl. As the titular acid-tongued, preggo high schooler, Ellen Page keeps on getting better and better, and the rest of the cast (JK Simmons, Allison Ranney, Jennifer Garner, and Jason Bateman, reunited here with his TV son, sweet baby Michael Cera) ain't no slouch neither. A couple minor quibbles: if anything the film is too cute by half. We don't need pop culture references for the sake of pop culture references: "No, It's Morgan Freeman. I'm here to collect some bones." And we certainly don't need a quirky folk song introducing every goddamn scene (Wes Anderson much?). Still, the film was ultimately very moving -- we always appreciate it when a foul-mouthed movie turns out to have some heart. more ›

One of our good film friends recently saw a preview screening of Superbad. When we asked him his opinion after the fact, he replied that it was "funny because it’s stupid," just what we'd expect for a movie about high school boys. In fact, the movie was also kinda written by high school boys: Seth Rogan (he of newly acquired Knocked Up fame) and Evan Goldberg started on the Superbad script when they were just fourteen years old. That--along with the heartfelt performances by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jonah Hill, and dear sweet Michael Cera--must be what gives the coming-of-age comedy all its authenticity and earnestness and verisimilitude and shit. more ›