2B -- Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

2B - Thursday, October 21, 2010 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom

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Judging A Book
By Its Cover
Why read a single page when the cover
tells the whole story?

EPISODE REVIEW

SINGLE REVIEW

We really should have seen it coming
(SPOILERS!). Don's (Jon Hamm) deci-
sion to propose to
his secretary seems
like an unnecessary
twist, a desperate
move written by des- Mad Men
perate writers. But as season four
we've been repeatedly
reminded this season, "Tomorrowland"
"Mad Men" isn't sim- AMC
ply a corporate drama
- it's a character study
of a troubled man who's looking for hap-
piness and a life beyond the office. Don's,
choice isn't between an independent pro-
fessional and a gold-digging floozy. It's a
choice between two versions of himself,
the high-powered corporate side of his
There's something unsatisfying about
Noah Lennox's newest material. The
melodies are jagged, the rhythms simple
with no inviting build.
Gone are the distant-
but-familiar samples
and deliberate pacing. Panda Bear
It comes across as a
little flat. "You Can
But there's a two- Count On Me"
headed force to the Domino
material, which we
hadn't yet heard from
Panda Bear or his contemporaries. The
songs are sparse, matched with lower
fidelity. But they never feel empty.
They're dense, but simple. With this
tension, they hold a curious power and
deliberation all their own.
Two best buds find a little green man
and embark on a comedic journey of
special effects-laden
mayhem. It's like an
"E.T." ripoff that post-A
dates the acceptable
time period for "E.T." Pul
ripoffs ... but only to Universal
the untrained eye.
Turns out those
two bros-for-life are none other than
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the Brit-
ish duo that brought you the comedy
masterpieces "Shaun of the Dead" and
"Hot Fuzz." They've paired once again
onscreen and on the script to complete
their genre parody trilogy, and science-
fiction epics must have seemed like the
next logical step following zombies

persona and the loving, accommodating
parenthe never had, yet tries to be.
While Don's busy making his fateful
choice and shocking millions of viewers,
Joan (Christina Hendricks), the firm's
long-suffering office manager, is pro-
moted to Head of Agency Operations.
The agency signs a new client thanks
to copywriter Peggy Olson (Elisabeth
Moss), yet both accomplishments are
overshadowed by Don's announcement.
Both women bemoan their lack of rec-
ognition in a beautifully acted scene that
embodies the sexism of the '60s. Peggy's
success in particular changes the mood
of the series from morbid to uneasy, as
the agency skates forward on thin ice.
Season five can't start soon enough.
-DAVID TAO
"You Can Count On Me" is full of this
duality.Thesongstops andstartsonsome
wavering guitar and Lennox's voice, but
the melody never stops moving. After
every phrase, there's a pregnancy to the
pause, filled with impenetrable things
- dialogue, echoed keyboards, the dead
ends of reverb. The melody never rests,
constantly writhing and washing over,
haunting the two minutes it holds before
departing.
Throughout the song, Lennox's words
sound split; "Know you can count on me"
sounds suspiciously like "No, you can't
count on me." If these recent singles have
proven anything, it's that we really can't
count on Panda Bear. And in this case,
that's a good thing.
-JOE DIMUZIO
("Shaun") and cops jumping through
explosions ("Fuzz").
Sadly,the one-minute teaser for "Paul,"
due March 18, 2011, doesn't feature much
of the inspired lunacy that characterized
these guys' previous efforts. But at least
director Greg Mottola ("Superbad") was
able to nab Seth Rogen as the voice of
the alien, and we get a kooky take on the
obligatory "disguised in public" scene.
Should be enough fun to circle the
Earth's orbit, if not leave it. Plus Sigour-
ney Weaver is here, which either means
she's about to blow up some space preda-
torsorgo allhippietosavetheindigenous
peaceful extraterrestrial population.
It's always one or the other with that
woman.
-ANDRE VLAPIN

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Most women know what they're
getting into when taking on the job
of demon-slayer - Kelsey Black-
boot is not one of them. Kelsey is
the unpopular girl in school just
try:sg to make some friends.
When she signs up for Students
United Through Faith as an after-
school activity, she's completely
unaware she joined a secret cult
dedicated to saving all of human-
ity - nevermind the fact that the
world's most threatening demon
resides right in her very own high
school. Now Kelsey must train to
become the most bad-ass demon-
slayer and take out the evil legion,
all while trying to pass her algebra
class and not trip in front of the
hunky football captain.
Author Angie Fox is no stranger
to young adult fiction with pre-
vious best-seller "OMG! High
School," but this is her first foray

CCURTESY OF LOVESPELL
into the supernatural. With so
many other-realm stories set in
high schools, it'd be easy to just
write off "The Accidental Demon
Slayer" as another bandwagon
paperback, but this page-turner is
a surprisingly insightful coming-
of-age story.
The emotional trauma Kelsey
experiences when she realizes her
own terrier, Puddles, is in fact the
Grand King Demon is written with
an honest maturity rarely seen in
Young Adult books. Kelsey's trans-
formation from homely nerd into
smoking hot babe is fiction's most
earnest character development
since Han Solo cast aside his anti-
hero tendencies. If you're looking
for a good mystical read this fall,
put down "Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo" and pick up "The Acciden-
tal Demon Slayer."
-CAROLYNKLARECKI

TRAILER REVIEW

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