Guest review by Billy Dee and Lucien Desar.
Bill Dee is a film critic and horror film aficionado.
Lucien Desar is a composer, recording artist, actor, and video blogger.
They both reside in spooky Salem, MA.

Do you crave flavorful refreshment…with booze? Well, nestled in Central Square, a microchip's throw from the MIT museum, awaits a spicy beverage to tempt your discerning palette. A bloody mary from the Miracle of Science in Cambridge is just what you need to start or end your day, provided you don't require any of your higher motor functions. You'll begin to understand the awesome power of this taste sensation when the bartender pulls out the massive jar full of delicious spices and herbs magically blended by elves on loan from Santa, Keebler, or perhaps Liv Tyler from the Lord of the Rings films.

You'll stop writing bad poetry about your tortured soul and begin writing worse poetry about horseradish when you take your first sip. It's served in a pint glass, with a cucumber rather than the traditional celery stalk, along with a lime or lemon if you so wish. There was a lot of thought and love put into the recipe of this chunky-textured, tomato-based concoction. If it were a little thicker, it could be enjoyed as a soup and don’t be surprised if a tasty bit gets caught in your straw. If you're not a fan of food or drink with a spicy kick, this is not your drink…and I feel sorry for you. However, if you are, then enjoy this invigorating combination of veggies and vodka, hopefully, followed by another.

One rainy Monday holiday, my girlfriend and I discovered this boozy blockbuster and spent a good part of the afternoon happily drinking these. We then followed this with a romantic, intoxicated viewing of Tron. Oh, the memories.

Miracle of Science
321 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA
617-868-ATOM

Guest review by Michael Wayne Smith, a mechanical being from outer space enjoying and extended vacation on Earth.

Twink is a toy piano band that gives you all the coolness and joy that should come from children's music with none of the homogenized boredom and safety that is the cornerstone of the majority of modern kids' tunes.

A Very Fine Adventure is the latest in the pantheon of Twink releases.

The disc jumps off with a ditty called "3 Bunnies in a Balloon." It's brimming with bouncy bunny beats, an organ that sounds like it escaped from your granddad's house, and retro video game sounds as are many of the other fine songs on this bubbling collection of tunes.

"Dustmuffin" is like if the Teletubbies became cool, colorful and fun DJs.

"Flytrap" has elements of noise and a dirty electronic core. It's a maniacal adventure inside the land of miswired toys.

"I Heart Rainbows" is a secret rave in a kingdom of enchanted fairy folk. Busting beats, toy pianos, and video game misfires, this one has its all.

Accordion sounds and old world melodies brew amidst the programmed rhythms of "Toadstool Tea" making this song one of the finest of this collection.

Jungle break beats and toy sounds push "What the Dickens" from child melodies to far out clubs where partying stuffed animals meet to drink bottled water and dance under strobe lights until the song has a complete psychedelic meltdown at the end.

Lastly we have "The Voyage Home." This song also has an old world feel but this time its more like your listening to a happy crying clown circus from twenty years before you were born regardless of your age.

This CD is a grand musical gift for your stuffed animal collection, your kids, yourself, or all three. The frolicsome bunnies and toys of Twink don't sit still and always seem to be ready to bust some fluffy tunes out of your stereo.

Guest review by Paul Angelosanto, an undead being who haunts the band Astro Al.

It's midnight, and the drummer’s fingers are impatiently tapping out what sounds suspiciously like an unintentional SOS on the snare, while scarcely masking a yawn behind her curled hand.  "Come on, dad," she seems to be pleading with her father, who's holding forth in a protracted monologue stage left, "Can't you see how badly we're not rocking?"

The fingers belong to Rachel Trachtenburg, the 14-year-old drummer/ukulele-player/singer/daughter of The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, whose Morse code translated the apparent sentiments of many of the fifty guests at the Knitting Factory performance in NYC on September 27.

I hadn't seen TFSP previously, and having heard only praise, watching the show felt as though I was desperately stuffing myself with a highly-recommended fine imported cheese, perhaps a Stinking Bishop. The Bishop was so sour, however, I couldn't tell if the taste was intentional. I kept eating it anyway, since I didn't want to waste it, and it was too late to run to the store for more. Maybe, I thought, I'm missing something.

The excruciating tension and sweaty anxiety onstage was an unnerving burden to experience, and I wondered if there had been a family argument before the show, or if the band chemistry was always so painful to watch. Many nervous excuses were made during the course of the evening for the musical and technical shortcomings. These were usually in the form of ironically esoteric one-liners which fell flat on the floor in front of a nonplussed, hello-is-this-thing-on crowd.

TFSP is a trio, which includes guitarist/keyboardist/singer/father Jason, slideshow performer/backing vocalist/mother Tina Piña, and Rachel. The band has scratched a name for themselves into the bathroom stall of music history by bringing to life one of those late-night brainstorms most of us simply shrug off the following morning.  Their formula involves sculpting gently rocking indie folk tunes based on stories invented from slide collections they find at estate sales, and performing the songs to a slideshow backdrop.

They have developed a business founded upon a clever set of gimmicks, and proudly so. It appeared the intended effect was for the audience to join the Players in their gleeful fight against mainstream corporate media. What translated instead was an unabashed attempt to submerge the audience into a cold and predatory guilt-bath of forced sympathy.

…Or maybe it was just an off night.

Trachtenboring.

The opening bands were:

Anamanaguchi
Earnest, brilliant and note-perfect, anamanaguchi was the most fun I've had at a show in years. The songs are instantly and persistently catchy and predominantly thematic. Offspring and Weezer have merged and perform a thrilling soundtrack to Dig-Dug. The meticulously constructed and executed pieces made me want to throw my hands up and cheer (given the tiny venue, I refrained), as though it was my collegiate brother whose band might just make it big. 8-bits sound like 64, and chiptune has never sounded so organic.

Beep! Strum!

Pleaseeasaur
Much like watching Saturday Night Live, I truly wanted to laugh, but found few opportunities to do so. I was uncomfortable with the tangible and pervasive angry undertone of the performer, JP Hasson, as though he might snap at any moment and murder us all. The retro-spiced motivational late-night TV meets high school auditorium multimedia presentation might perhaps have read better if interspersed with varying flavors.

Pleasenomore.

Luckily, after the downstairs show, the doorman Richie suggested I check out the upstairs revue, and I’m so pleased I did.

Hosted by Kaiju Big Battel
Yessssssss!

Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re
More energy than Gojira: near-perfect rock!

BakuBeni
Not so much.

Playing earlier during the downstairs shows (i.e., unseen):

Echostream
Falsies On Heat
Quaff
The Notorious MSG
MiniRex

NOTE: Knitting Factory will be relocating after December 31, 2008 to the Luna Lounge in Williamsburg.

Review by Jason Dragon.
Jason Dragon coined the terms "smugster" and "The Shatner Effect," and has been writing reviews since the day he was born ("The performance space was too dark and claustrophobic, and the sound was muffled – John Cage did it better years ago.").

Truffaut. Godard. Malle. Rohmer. Ogroff.

If you're sharp, you've determined that we're speaking French. And, if you're even sharper, you've recognized five key names in France's magical cinematic revolution. Bravo, my friend! Now that we've—what's that? You say there's something unsettling about one of the names on that list? One that lacks the approved familiarity of its peers? One that kind of smells like old meat, chainsaw oil, and over-heated synthesizers? Bravo again, my friend. For this is Ogroff. And he has no peers.

Ogroff is a grody slasher-perversion from the foothills of France. It's also a benchmark in the halls of accidental, no-fi surrealism caught on Super 8/home video/construction paper. Shot sometime in the early 80s by director Norbert Moutier, I've watched Ogroff three times in the last three years. Each successive viewing brings me closer to the plotless, gore-drenched, gutter-poetic truth. Yet, that truth constantly eludes me. This film shocks me. It makes me laugh. It puts me to sleep. It keeps me guessing. There is no up or down; no left or right. So I keep watching. And it keeps delivering. Should you agree that the epitome of life-enhancing cinema may lie somewhere between Francois Truffaut's Stolen Kisses and Doris Wishman's A Night To Dismember, then Ogroff probably has your number, too.

Besides, nobody destroys a VW Bug with a pick-axe in My Night At Maud's. And that's something worth seeing.

Guest review by Joseph A. Ziemba: a musician (http://www.beaujolaismusic.com), writer (http://www.bleedingskull.com), and graphic designer (day job) from Chicago.

It would seem that 1996 was a good time to be making films in Denmark.  Lars von Trier was at the peak of his career, winning awards and notoriety around the globe and his freshly launched Dogme 95 movement was triggering a wave of raw, do it yourself films from all corners of the earth.  But what if, say, you fell outside the normal von Trier circle?  What if you had no interest in following his Ten Commandments for handheld, unlit character drama?  What if you ached for style and guns and violence and loud music?  What if you were a young Dane largely raised in New York who wanted to play to the masses rather than the arthouse crowd?  If you were Nicholas Winding Refn you made Pusher, the first in what would eventually become a trilogy of—in my not so humble opinion—the very best crime films ever made.

Kim Bodnia plays Frank, a low level drug dealer with dreams of striking it big through a series of covert side deals, set up with the help of his loyal sidekick Tonny—played by a then-totally-unknown Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale).  But—and do you really need me to tell you this?—dealing drugs is a high risk business and things fall apart badly for Frank, leaving him not only facing jail time but an angry Serb drug lord, dissatisfied customers and a future filled with unspeakable violence.

What makes the Pusher films something special isn't the style or the raw energy—though it has both in spades—nor the acts of violence—ditto—but the shocking intimacy of the thing.  The characters populating Refn's world are raw and open wounds, every one of them, and the Pusher films succeed—like no others ever have—in digging deep into these very damaged psyches.  As we move through the trilogy, each of them focusing on a different but related character in the Copenhagen underworld, we realize the full scope, complexity and humanity of Refn's project and can only draw the conclusion that by keeping the Pusher films away from the operatic qualities of Coppola's Godfather films Refn ends up with something every bit as epic but far more disturbing because it is far more recognizable, far more resonant.

Guest review by Todd Brown.
Todd Brown is the founder and editor of Twitch, the leading website for international film. Todd also programs for Fantastic Fest, Fantasia, Toronto After Dark, The World Wide Short Film Festival and Canadian Music Week.

Having just watched Feed for the second time I have to ask myself: seriously, did anyone but my partner David and I actually make it past the first 15 minutes?

During these first fifteen minutes of my second viewing I lean forward, mouth agape, starting to get a bit nauseous and thinking, "Wow, did I actually recommend this movie to anyone? Are they all going to shoot me, fire me, or whatever it is people do to people who recommend that they spend two hours of their precious little free time watching a movie that… sucks?"

Of course I must continue watching to find out why the hell I would have thought this was an appropriate film for this site, so I force myself to keep going…and a few hours later I find myself sitting in the same position (EOS, Edge of Seat Factor, is off the charts) mouth still agape and thinking "Yeah, yeah, I can see it… I can see the insanity, I am drawn into it. I am mesmerized by the charisma, beauty and power of Michael (the Feeder), I can see how Deidre (the Gainer) was played, how she got hooked, how Phillip (the Cop) would embody the outrage and need to purify the poison gasses (which ultimately reveal themselves to be as embedded in him as they are in the world he is trying to take down) and how this weird space could actually exist, how it could lie pulsing on the floor of the underground, deep in the black mud of our psyches, where nightmares and daymares meet and greet, the place where fetishes, compulsions and mind games seed, germinate, bloom, become full fledged flower beds, massive colored rows of fragrant, potent decadent desires, explorations and exploitations, controlling, submitting, yielding sanity…yeah, I can see it."

But I still think you are going to shoot me.

So, if anybody is still out there, if you did or didn't make it through, let's talk. Tell me why. Why you did. Or why you didn't. Help me figure out what it is that made me attach in some way to this piece. This dark, ugly and compelling aberrant trip. Is it because I am relieved that I don’t have to go there? That somehow, in spite of the many horrors of my life, the pain that sometimes feels beyond bearing, still the lowest rung of my ladder seems ten thousand steps up from what these people have chosen? (Or has it all been chosen for them? How does one come upon this fate or that, is it as arbitrary as it looks?) Or is it some devil sitting on my shoulder whispering "There you see? You humans can do ANYTHING. The world is not just your oyster, it is your canvas and your palette, and on it you are free to splash ANY paint. Stretch your mind to its farthest reaches, and still there is always further to go, miles and miles beyond even that."

Is that Freedom? Does that release me? Does knowing that our lusts and our choice of degradations are so infinite actually make them the points of ABSOLUTE CONTROL? Is this the lure of the 'sub/dom' phenom? Is that what this film is saying? Is it saying anything at all? Or is it just one more hunk of crap in the junkyard?

Guest review by Lee Paris of Films off the Beaten Path. "Films, Photographs, Food, Fishes & Friends; five must haves on my desert island."

Riddle me this:

How do you review a CD by one of your favorite bands that may, in fact, be their best work without just saying: "Walter Sickert & THe ARmy of BRoken TOys is an amazing band and Casualty Menagerie is their best work to date."?

On the day this new EP arrived I removed it from the mailbox on a wet overcast morning. I was excited but I was also a bit off. It was the second day of fever and (as it turned out) inner infection for me.

The world was grey, silver and strange. In the days that followed I found myself driving around my hilly city, filling my mornings with disease-touched visions. Casualty Menagerie is the perfect soundtrack for fever-dream fueled travel.

By adding a number of cohorts (Lainey on melodica-basso & kitchen utensils & sequencing, Val Thompson on cello, Myq Kaplan and Heather Kuhn on violins) Walter Sickert (and his one-woman army Edrie) manages to orchestrate his "death folk" into full blow cabaret macabre. This transition is handled skillfully and beautifully. On previous releases it felt as if Walter & the Army were performing their twisted toy stories for a handful of misfit toys.

Now, with fuller orchestration and deeper production, the group evokes a recital for the entire unseelie court. This is tragic music for wicked goblins and pixies. Yet the music isn't otherworldly, it is contemporary and terrestrial. You can identify with it. This courtly, dark cabaret is happening somewhere close by, perhaps in the next room… but more likely in the walls or under the floorboards. The desperation heard on these songs makes you want to rip up those floorboards with your bare hands and join in. Perhaps you won't be the only one with bloody fingers, Walter seems possessed by such a drive that you imagine him working his fingers raw on his guitar and piano.

Obviously he's a passionate man. And what sets Casualty Menagerie apart from their debut full length (other than their new musical comrades) is that Walter sounds less hurt and more angry. The debut featured a wounded Walter, his hurt and heart on his sleeve. Now he's more Walter the warrior. This aren't ugly rock fist-in-the-air songs, but it's clear that Walter & Edrie have no desire to sit about and feel sorry for themselves.

Listening to "No Room" and "Carnal Carnivale" you hear their distaste at being sold out and pushed aside. But now there is action to be taken. Walter fully takes on the mantle of pied-piper revolutionary on the lab animal liberation epic "Revenge of the Rats". If revenge is a dish best severed cold "Casualty Menagerie" is the appetizer at a vengeance dinner party.

This dis-quiet evokes Alice Cooper during his mental illness and  alcohol-addled Welcome to My Nightmare years, not the bombastic rock part but the creepy internal monologue elements (check out his "Years Ago"). Walter is also possessed, briefly, by Jim Morrison (at least his voice) on "Vitagraph". If Tom Waits is the performer in purgatory's lounge then Walter Sickert & THe ARmy of BRoken TOys are the band playing as revenants and wraiths make their decision NOT TO GO to the other side. There's still work to be done (darkness to be explored, strange stories to be told, avenging unfinished) here before we shuffle off to the next world and Casualty Menagerie is the playing in the background

Walter Sickert & THe ARmy of BRoken TOys:
http://www.ARMYOFTOYS.com
http://www.myspace.com/armyoftoys

Guest review by Jordan Block of SepiaChord.
Jordan Block is the Sepiachord Captain, a geek who frequently finds himself DJing the Pacific Northwest and arguing with his friends about music.

Harts Horn is a one man space rock band from Indiana churning out scores of wonderful self released discs straight from the id of a psych wild man.

With a loving touch of unrepentant prog abandon Begin to Exist is a little over forty minutes long and only has three songs. It’s great to see someone who is unafraid to turn their back on mad architectural constructs of epic songs.

The pulsing instrumental 18 plus minutes long track, "Am I?" starts things off with high speed drums, piano sweeps and squalls of deep space synths. This tune really makes a great jump off point to the rest of the disc.

Deep synth tonalities, sweet Robyn Hitchcock I Often Dream of Trains style jangle guitar and lilting 60's style vocals make up the basis of "Where Do You Go?" A tasty refresher after the prog assault of the prior tune kind of like a musical oasis.

Then it's back to prog psych atmospheres and orbits with "I Am." Some discordant drum smashing, rhythms, rolls, cymbal riding, and strange bursts of sound fill this tune up. It's a thrashing beast of an instrumental that smashes its way right up to the end.

This disc is a great exploration of the forgotten songscape stylings of the past and is unabashed and beautiful in giving the listeners ears a sonic sample of what music of this kind can do.

Guest review by Paul Angelosanto, an undead being who haunts the band Astro Al.

This small hard cover isn't exactly a serving of garmonbozia, but more like a slice of cherry pie to go. Catching the Big Fish is a collection of Lynch's thoughts, spanning only a page or two at a time, describing how he "dives within" to "catch" his delicious salmon-like creativity. Sometimes it may be a mischievous minnow or only a cunning guppy, but fishing is more about the experience rather than the haul to be gutted and cooked by reviewers such as myself. Lynch conveys the importance meditation has in generating ideas, fleshing them out, and bringing them into the real world be it film, painting, or otherwise. It all begins with the story of how his sister introduced him to Transcendental mediation and then how this technique allowed him to reduce and even eliminate much of the anxiety, anger, and depression that existed within him.

Some thoughts are inspiring, some just silly, but an entertaining read in any case. I must confess it was nearly impossible not to imagine Lynch narrating, more like yelling, as the character Gordon Cole he portrayed on Twin Peaks. My only complaint is that the stories aren't more in depth and though his films are mentioned throughout, he doesn't give the amount of insight into them I was hoping for. For example, there's an entire page dedicated to the blue box and key from Mulholland Drive, which I could go on for hours about, but all he writes is "I don't have a clue what those are." That's it?! I was a tad crestfallen, but I understand the point is for ME to explain it, not him. Get out the ol' fishin' pole and catch my own ideas. Usually, I only catch weeds and plastic 6-pack rings.

Enjoy this book with a cup of black coffee to lure enlightenment from the rough waters of your mind. Oh, and do remember to wash your hands after handling your ideas.

Guest review by Michael Wayne Smith, a mechanical being from outer space enjoying and extended vacation on Earth.