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WELCOME 07/29/2009
 
     Let’s start off by focusing on some of my favorite things from albums to websites. For fun, I’ll give the best of them my “Bob Certified” stamp of approval. Just to keep it real, I’ll also include warnings about disappointments.  I begin by saluting my top album since I left the Times in 2006 to write books. After that, I’ll concentrate on current releases.
    
Music:

     ROBERT PLANT AND ALISON KRAUSS’s “RAISING SAND”
√  Bob Certified
     The idea of the voice of Zeppelin meeting the queen of bluegrass/country seemed on paper like a most unlikely mix when it was announced in the fall of 2007. But I fell in love with spectacular mix of beauty and brawn, exotic blues and pristine country during the album’s opening seconds and “Raising Sand” remains as captivating today. It is a brave, bold work in which Plant and Krauss put their talent and faith into producer T Bone Burnett’s hands and he rewards their trust by helping them deliver a mini-masterpiece. The Grammy voters got it right when they named “Raising Sand” the album of the year. (Rounder)

     THE DEAD WEATHER’s “HOREHOUND”
√  Bob Certified
     The Raconteurs is a fine band, but Jack White’s new quartet is much closer to the exotic, bluesy pulse of the White Stripes. I was already a fan of Alison Mosshart from her work with the Kills, a much underappreciated British duo, and it was easy to see why White would want to work with her. She and the band combine raw desire and torment in ways that cast a spell that feels equal parts Howlin’ Wolf and P.J. Harvey. The incendiary “New Pony” may be the most radical reworking of a Bob Dylan song since Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower.” White may step from guitar to drums (his first musical love), but his vision remains front and center.  (Third Man)
 

Websites: 

     “METACRITIC”
√  Bob Certified
     One thing I enjoy about the Internet is the quick access to numerous newspapers, magazines and websites so that I can pick a favorite music reviewer from one source, a favorite movie critic from another and favorite TV critic from possibly a third.
     Then I turn to Metacritic.com because it lets me see what a wide range of critics think about the work. The site pulls together a dozen or more music, TV and film reviews from leading sources, then gives each review a numerical score (1 to 100) that reflects the critic’s feelings about the individual work. The site also shows us a sample of the review (and often a link to the full review) and tops the whole thing off by giving each album or film an average score based on all the reviews.
     Metacritic (motto: “We deal with criticism”) has been around for years, but I only discovered it a few months ago. If you don’t know it and you love reviews, Metacritic is for you:  www.metacritic .com

Movies:

     “THE HURT LOCKER”
√  Bob Certified
    I didn’t know much about the movie except for the strong word of mouth and high Metacritic score (93, tops for a film so far this year) and it turned out to be such a brilliant and original movie that I assumed it was the work of some new cinematic whiz kid—maybe a modern day Orson Welles. So I was amazed to learn “The Hurt Locker” it was by a veteran Hollywood director (Kathryn Bigelow, whose credits include “Point Break” and “Blue Steel”). 
     The story, told in a quasi documentary style, is about American soldiers assigned to disarm bombs (either those strapped to someone’s body or hidden in the sand) in Iraq. The duty is made all the more insanely tense by not knowing whether the bystanders on the street or rooftops are just observing or about to ignite violence. What is remarkable about the film is the way Bigelow refrains from injecting an overriding judgment.
     It’s not, in a strict sense, an anti-war film or a statement against American involvement in Iraq or a pro-U.S document. It just shows us, about as well as any movie in memory, what it is like to be at the center of a combat zone. It’s the most absorbing American film since “There Will Be Blood.”

     “WHATEVER WORKS”    
     Larry David plays a world-weary Woody Allen better these days than Allen himself, but that doesn’t save a movie that simply doesn’t work. If made by a young director, this film would be dismissed as a bad Woody Allen imitation. The fact that it was made by Allen himself is disheartening.