Highway Tunes

Summer Road Mix: The best 2010 songs for a road trip warrior

Yes, you want these guys in your car. MGMT's "Congratulations" is a must play.
Forget where the open road will take you, it's all about what you're listeningto along the way.
Gaslight Anthem has a lot of Springsteen in their sound — which make themperfect for the road.
The boys from Vampire Weekend are made for summer.

As you get ready to hit the road for you summer vacation destination, you need to have the proper tune-age to ease you on down that road (and drown out the kids/in-laws/insert-your-own-annoyance-here screaming in the back seat.)

With that in mind, here is a list of the best songs of what’s been a particularly fruitful first six months of 2010. Now get downloading, or else prepare to, heaven forbid, make conversation in the car.

“Crown On The Ground” by Sleigh Bells

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We’re going to start off with a little cheat here, because this was actually released as a single last year. But we’ll allow it because the album which contains it came out just last month, and because its thunderously catchy beat might act as a homemade hydraulic system for your car.

“Bloodbuzz, Ohio” by The National

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Quite simply the best song from the best album released so far this year. Plus it gives us a one-two start from bands based out of Brooklyn, even though The National’s darkly compelling beauty bears little similarity to Sleigh Bells in-your-face bounce.

“Horchata” by Vampire Weekend

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This was a band made for the summer, and the breezy, marimba-fueled groove they concoct here practically conjures up warm breezes by the force of its will. It’s only when you listen closer that you notice the melancholy aftertaste of Ezra Koenigs’s lyrics.

“Kiss Like Your Kiss” by Lucinda Williams with Elvis Costello

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I guess it’s impossible to avoid vampires this summer, so let’s slow it down a bit with this lovely duet from the True Blood soundtrack. When these two vets harmonize, they summon heartache that you don’t need to be undead to feel.

“Melancholy Hill” by Gorillaz

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"Plastic Beach" was a triumph for Damon Albarn’s comic-book collective. Here he steers clear of the hip-hop and guest stars that permeate much of the album and delivers a picture-perfect pop song, all wistful and gorgeous.

“Bushwick Blues” by Delta Spirit

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It’s unusual to hear an indie band leave cynicism at the door, but this single is full of open-hearted romanticism, and it’s quite refreshing. Coupled with the tightness of their guitar attack, you’ve got an irresistible track that deserves a big audience.

“Crash Years” by The New Pornographers

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If a mad scientist went into a lab with the intention of creating a band that was made for car stereos, he would likely come out with these Canadian power-poppers. With Neko Case on lead vocals, this one has more hooks than a pirate convention.

“The Suburbs” by Arcade Fire

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They’ve been slowly leaking tracks online, whetting everyone’s appetite for the early August release of their third full-length. For my money, this moody song, with piano borrowed from 10CC and suburban outlook borrowed from David Lynch, is the best of those four killer preview tracks.

“Congratulations” by MGMT

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Many people didn’t know what to make of the prog-rock moves of this buzzy duo’s second album. Too bad, because it’s a trippy winner. But if you’re one of the timid, you can stick with this song, the album’s title track and most accessible song of the bunch, a clever ode to the pitfalls of believing your own press clippings.

“You Must Be Out Of Your Mind” by Magnetic Fields

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Summer can’t be all roses and sunshine. You need a little bit of Stephin Merritt’s acerbic humor, here combined with a Baroque-pop arrangement and his unerringly catchy songwriting skills, to balance things out.

“Hurricane J” by The Hold Steady

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This Minnesota band’s latest set was a bit of a step backward as a whole from the heights they had reached on their previous albums. This song, however, a hard-charging tribute to a girl whose self-sabotage knows no bounds, is an undeniable winner.

“Old Haunts” by Gaslight Anthem

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Like the Hold Steady, this group has a lot of Springsteen in its sound. On this swaggering rocker they find a groove all their own, as frontman Brian Fallon spits out verses warning about the dead ends of nostalgia.

“The Ghost Inside” by Broken Bells

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You’d never guess that James Mercer could be funky from his work with The Shins. Thanks to the influence of producer and collaborator Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, Mercer channels Prince on this bumping track, even pulling out a knockout falsetto.

“Take Care” by Beach House

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What better way for a summer mix to go out than with a band named Beach House? This is also the perfect closer because of its dreamy atmospherics and the way Victoria Legrand’s voice cuts through it all with the sweet promise, “I’ll take care of you.”

If that doesn’t cure you of road rage, you’re beyond help, my friend. Have a great summer!

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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