Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Little Man | |
| When someone leaves an adorable 72-year-old Canadian singer of despairing ballads on a family's doorstep, hilarity ensues! | "Open wide ... here comes the milk, like a train of inevitable heartbreak pulling into the station ... open wide!" |
| Aw, Daddy loves playing with his cute little septuagenarian Buddhist crooner! Hallelujah! | "Open wide ... here comes the milk, like a train of inevitable heartbreak pulling into the station ... open wide" |
SNAP JUDGMENT: The Killers: "When You Were Young" |
The Vegas Strip ain't the Jersey shore, and Gold Coast bellhops don't spend their teenage years souping up muscle cars. In other words, no one will fault you for giggling when Brandon Flowers cops a streetwise Springsteen pose to sing, "We're burnin' down the highway skyline" midway through the Killers' spiffy new single (from upcoming album Sam's Town). Mismatched lyrics aside, "When You Were Young" skyrockets to catchy, synthed-up heaven, so brace yourself for another billion spins this summer. Streaming continuously at islandrecords.com/thekillers. Spencer Patterson
DVDs |
Clean (4 stars)
$24.99
Olivier Assayas' drama would be worth watching if only for the performance by gifted Hong Kong action star Maggie Cheung. In Clean, she plays Emily, a musician who's addicted to heroin and other benefits of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. She loses custody of her son after an overdose claims her once-famous husband, and she's sent to jail to clean up her act. The boy remains with his grandparents (Nick Nolte, Martha Henry) in Vancouver while Emily struggles to stay straight. It takes a while. Years later, Emily's father-in-law is moved by a letter in which Emily states her desire to see her son. He surrenders to the inevitable, and arranges for a nearly disastrous mother-son reunion in Paris. It wouldn't be fair to reveal any more of the story's nuances, except to say that none fits the three-hankie format established long ago by studio executives and purveyors of Kleenex. Gary Dretzka