Songs and the City

Valentine's mixtape: Love songs for your loved one

Dean and Britta's "Back Numbers"
Jens Lekman
Yo La Tengo's "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out"
Kurt Wagner of Lampchop
Nick Drake

I've been wracking my brain trying to determine the best Valentine's Day theme for this installment of "Songs and the City."

Should I highlight twisted love songs that find curious ways to express devotion (i.e. "She's Like Heroin to Me" by the Gun Club)?

Or should I focus on songs of heartbreak and misery as a shout-out to the millions of people who despise the Hallmark holiday: The single and the spurned? Tracks like "We'll Burn Together" by Robbie Fulks and "Better Off Without a Wife" by Tom Waits would be perfect for such an anti-Valentine's list.

Or should I gather together a handful of my favorite love songs as the ultimate mixtape for googly-eyed lovebirds like myself?

Since I'm feeling particularly warm and giddy this unusually cold February, I decided that I'd compile the latter, a heartwarming collection of musical tributes to love.

"Breathless" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

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Not known as somebody who usually sings about anything positive, much less love (and, no, murderous obsession does not count), Nick Cave pulls out all the stops with the glorious "Breathless," a song that skips along with lovesick abandon. The flutes flutter about like the butterflies you feel when your sweetheart enters the room. "The happy hooded bluebells bow/And bend their heads all a-down/Heavied by the early morning dew/At the whispering stream, at the bubbling brook/The fishes leap up to take a look/For they are breathless over you."

"You Are the Light" by Jens Lekman

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The Swedish pop svengali delivers a first class cheeky ode to love with "You Are the Light," a song with a priceless opening line: "Yeah I got busted so I used my one phone call to dedicate a song to you on the radio." Talk about devotion! The punchy horns and lilting melody are pure pop confection. This is love that's sticky sweet and dance-inducing.

"Valentine's Day" by Hem

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Springsteen's unheralded gem from 1987 is given a brilliant treatment by the New York chamber-pop group, Hem. The lyrics are vintage Boss, a lonely highway journey back to the loving grasp of his true love: "I'm driving a big lazy car rushin' up the highway in the dark/I got one hand steady on the wheel and one hand's tremblin' over my heart/It's pounding baby like it's gonna bust right on through/And it ain't gonna stop till I'm alone again with you." While Springsteen's original is surely a winner, I'm partial to the pristine vocals of Sally Ellyson and the weepy pedal steel on Hem's stunning remake. It's a rare case where a Springsteen track is bested by another artist.

"You're 39, You're Beautiful and You're Mine" by Paul Kelly

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I can't wait for my wife to turn 39, if for no other reason than to be able to play this song for her over a full year and have the message be completely accurate. The piano line makes me swoon and the lyrics are a thing of simple beauty. For all you guys that are hesitant to openly share your feelings, this track's for you. Turn it up, grab your baby and lead her on a living room waltz she's not likely to forget.

"Our Way to Fall" by Yo La Tengo

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A true story about the budding romance between Yo La Tengo's lead singer Ira Kaplan and his soon-to-be wife (and the band's drummer) Georgia Hubley, "Our Way to Fall" perfectly captures the vulnerability, uncertainty and awkward giddiness that accompanies a new crush. Ira's hushed delivery, the brushed cymbals, woozy keyboards, Georgia's subtle backing vocals, and the languid tempo mesh with the lyrics to make this one of the sweetest love songs ever.

"I Believe in You" by Lambchop

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Kurt Wagner of Lambchop has earned heaps of praise and a cult following for his mumbling and muttering vocal style, but his message of love comes through as clear as a bell in his winning take on Don Williams' 1980 hit. After reeling off a litany of things he doesn't believe in (the price of gold, organic food, superstars, the certainty of growing old, to name a few) Wagner arrives at the chorus and professes what he does believe in: "But I believe in love/I believe in music/I believe in magic/And I believe in you." Enough said.

"If You Need Someone" by The Field Mice

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Boasting an infectious Smiths guitar jangle and a sweet bouncy melody, "If You Need Someone" should have been a late '80s hit, or at least included on a post-John Hughes romantic comedy soundtrack. It overflows with "aw-shucks" romanticism, but its elegant grandeur keeps it from coming across as to "twee" or treacly.

"You Turned My Head Around" by Dean & Britta

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For all of you who found your true love at a point in your life when things were looking down and you were feeling lower than low, you'll be able to identify with this timeless track. An elegant, wispy interpretation of a 1969 Lee Hazlewood song (originally sung by Ann Margaret), it finds Britta Phillips (the former voice of cartoon's Jem) soaring to the heavens as she proclaims how the arrival of her baby lifted her out of her doldrums: "I told myself I'd never feel again/I said I'd never care what's real, but then... you turned my head around."

"I Had to Tell You" by 13th Floor Elevators

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Even after countless listens, the power of this track is never diminished. It's about how love can give you strength even in the darkest of times. Read through a sample lyric and then let Roky Erickson take you away with his hauntingly fragile performance: "Chaos all around me/with its finger clinging/but I can hear you singing/in the corners of my brain/Every doubt has found me/Every sound grows drier/Everything is quiet/But the song that keeps me sane/I can hear your voice/echo in my voice softly/I can feel your strength/reinforcing mine."

"So In Love" by Curtis Mayfield

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Sultry, sexy, soulful. Words like these can't even begin to describe the wonder of this 1975 cut by the legendary Curtis Mayfield. He's one of those rare artists (along with Marvin Gaye) who's equally adept at slinging stinging social commentary one minute and exuding spine-tingling sensuality the next, often on the same album side. This talent has enabled Mayfield to lay down some of the greatest soul music ever put to wax.

"Northern Sky" by Nick Drake

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This track from Nick Drake's masterpiece "Bryter Layter" never fails to give me goosebumps. Described by NME as the "greatest English love song of modern times," "Northern Sky" features Drake's achingly beautiful voice combined with a sweeping orchestral arrangement and an expert guest turn by the Velvet Underground's John Cale on piano, organ and celesta. "I never felt magic crazy as this," Drake sings to open the song, and every time I hear it I couldn't agree with him more.

"You You You You You" by The 6ths (featuring Katharine Whalen)

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The 6ths is one of the many side projects of Magnetic Field's Stephin Merritt, an immensely gifted songwriter who follows in the footsteps of golden age craftsmen like Cole Porter, the Gershwins, and Lerner and Loewe. Granted, his lyrical approach is updated for the 21st century, but his songs beam with the same classic grace and sophistication of the giants who came before him. On "You You You You You" he recruits Squirrel Nut Zipper Katharine Whalen to deliver a delicious ode to love that's impossible to resist: "You make me feel like I'm seventeen again/You make everything beautiful seem true/I can't wait to go to sleep and dream again/'cause every dream I dream is a dream of dreamy little you."

Movie Review

Avatar: Fire and Ash returns to Pandora with big action and bold visuals

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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