Check Out The Hurricane: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture

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The Hurricane: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture Overview

In 1966, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was working towards a middleweight boxing title when he was arrested for three murders and sentenced to three life sentences. Twenty years later, Carter was released from prison after a Brooklyn teenager and three Canadian activists proved his innocence. Carter's story initially inspired Bob Dylan to pen "Hurricane" back in 1975. Today, director Norman Jewison (In the Heat of the Night, A Soldier's Story) has cast Denzel Washington as Hurricane on the big screen. The soundtrack is as schizophrenic as they come, featuring Dylan's tune plus a modern interpretation by Black Thought, Common, Mos Def, the Roots, and others that is virtually unrecognizable. Ray Charles, Ruth Brown, and Etta James represent the old guard with classic soul. Gil Scott-Heron's classic "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is a tenet of urban protest. The one bum note is provided by writer-for-hire Dianne Warren, who contributes "One More Mountain (Free Again)" for K-Ci & JoJo, complete with lite-FM piano and the kind of inspirational junk you'd hope "Hurricane" Carter would bypass. --Rob O'Connor

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Check Out Inside Man (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) for $16.92

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Inside Man (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Overview

From the first seconds of the film Inside Man, a compelling mood is set via the powerful music that accompanies the opening scene. The song, "Chaiyya Chaiyya Bollywood Joint" is an adapted, hip-hop-inflected tune (featuring Punjabi MC) from India's most famous soundtrack creator, A.R. Rahman. Those hoping for a full-on South Asian exploration should note that this is the only Bollywood number on the disc; the rest of the film is scored by Spike Lee regular Terence Blanchard (Malcolm X, 25th Hour,Bamboozled.) Blanchard--a former member of both Lionel Hampton's band and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers--has created moments of quiet beauty in the soundtrack; "Press Here To Play" is a pensive piano and trumpet journey that ends (too soon) at 90 seconds, while "Nazis Pay Too Well" is another highlight, a masterfully-mournful orchestral piece well worth further expansion. Those pieces aside, the lion's share of the soundtrack is a variation on one of two separate musical themes, both of which set an appropriate tone throughout the film. On their own, however, they are almost too soundtracky to play even as background music over dinner. For personal use, Blanchard's non-film, jazz recordings may be the way to go. --Denise Sheppard

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Check Out Man on Fire [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack] for $14.99

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Man on Fire [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack] Overview

Director Tony Scott's tale of an ex-Marine-turned-bodyguard (Denzel Washington) who responds to the kidnapping of his young charge and her family with a violence-drenched cycle of revenge and torture is driven by the filmmaker's typically manic visual sense. English composer Harry Gregson-Williams, whose conjured similar action-oriented synth-symphony fusion scores for The Rundown and Spy Game, deftly expands the dimensions of that bi-polar musical sensibility here, infusing it with gentle ethnic folk touches and the ever-savory sonic contributions of Lisa Gerrard. The composer matches Scott's visually jarring action sequences with a melange of strangled guitar riffs, metallic rhythms and aggressive electronic soundscapes, contrasting them masterfully against quiet piano passages and brooding symphonic pastoralism. Contemporary Latin ballads by Gabriel Gonzalez and Cuban singer/songwriter Carlos Varela help cement the score's foreign intrigue, while Gerrard (arguably the MVP of soundtrack utility players) contributes a smart remix of the title track and collaborates with Gregson-Williams on the haunting "The End," which also features her distinctly exotic vocals. The result is a spiritual cousin to Hans Zimmer's similarly compelling brew of electronica and world music for Black Hawk Down. -- Jerry McCulley

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Hung: A Meditation on the Measure of Black Men in America Quality Best

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Hung: A Meditation on the Measure of Black Men in America Overview

Following in the footsteps of such bestselling, taboo-breaking books as Randall Kennedy’s Nigger and J. L. King’s On the Down Low, Hung brings a topic previously discussed only in intimate settings out into the open. In a brilliant, multilayered look at the pervasive belief that African American men are prodigiously endowed, Scott Poulson-Bryant interweaves his own experiences as a black man in America with witty analyses of how black male sexuality is expressed in books, film, television, sports, and pornography.

“Hung” is a double entendre, referring not only to penis size but to the fact that black men were once literally hung from trees, often for their perceived sexual prowess and the supposed risk it posed to white women. As a poignant reminder, he begins his book with a letter to Emmett Till, the teenager who was lynched in Mississippi in the mid-1950s for whistling at a white woman.

For Poulson-Bryant and other men of his generation, society’s deep-seated obsession with the sexual powers of black men has had an enormous, if often deceptive, influence on how they perceive themselves and on the assumptions made by others. His tales of his sexual encounters with both sexes, along with anecdotes about the lives of various friends and colleagues, are wryly and at times shockingly revealing. Enduring racial perceptions have shaped popular culture as well, and Poulson-Bryant offers a thorough, thought-provoking look at media-created images of the “Well-Hung Black Male.” He deftly deconstructs movies like Mandingo and Shaft, articles in the popular press, and edgy works like Robert Mapplethorpe’s Black Book, while also providing distinctive profiles of icons like porn star Lexington Steele and rapper L.L. Cool J.

A scintillating mixture of memoir and cultural commentary, Hung is the first and only book to take on phallic fixation and uncover what lies below. Readers may be scandalized, but they’ll also have plenty to ponder about America’s views on how black men measure up.

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Check Out Malcolm X: Music From The Motion Picture Soundtrack for $9.70

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Check Out American Gangster for $9.77

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American Gangster Overview

2007 album from the rapper-turned-business mogul. American Gangster is Jay-Z's tenth studio release. A semi-concept album inspired by Ridley Scott's film of the same name, it sees Jay-Z chronicle his time as a street hustler. It is a return to a grittier street sound than his predecessor Kingdom Come. . Comparisons are being made to his debut album Reasonable Doubt and with good reason. The lead single 'Blue Magic', produced by none other than Pharrell Williams, is an '80s-feeling ode taking its hook from En Vogue's 'Hold On'. Also on board for the record are esteemed producers P.Diddy and Just Blaze, and there is another stunning collaboration with Nas, aptly entitled 'Success'.

American Gangster Specifications

An unofficial musical companion to the film of the same name (dir. Ridley Scott), American Gangster traces the rise and fall of a self-made American man. Sound tired? Perhaps, but a dozen albums into his career, Jay-Z can be forgiven his occasional dabbling in shopworn archetypes. A panoramic, cinematic work in four acts, American Gangster bulges with instrumental melodrama. Take "American Dreamin'": despite the Diddy-produced track's sultry, shifty beat, a pile of whining strings and tinkling piano flourishes all but completely suppresses the rhythmic interplay between the vocals and drums. Again and again, Jay-Z's otherwise compelling raps fall prey to a similarly overwrought studio aesthetic. (In this, the album resembles many a Ridley Scott film.) There are exceptions: Bigg D's "Hello Brooklyn 2.0" and the Neptunes' "I Know" and lead single "Blue Magic" are unqualified bangers, and Jermaine Dupri's "Success" (featuring Nas) flaunts a relentless organ lick with 'round-the-way mojo to spare, but the album's overriding sonic melodrama is all Diddy. Still, no one steals Jay-Z's thunder easily. Having long since joined the top ranks of the hip-hop elite, Jay-Z can (and does) ultimately weather the best efforts of another major-league ego and still come out on top. --Jason Kirk

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Lakeview Terrace Quality Best

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Lakeview Terrace Overview

In Lakeview Terrace, a young couple (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) has just moved into their California dream home when they become the target of their next-door neighbor, who disapproves of their interracial relationship. A stern, single father, this tightly wound LAPD officer (Samuel L. Jackson) has appointed himself the watchdog of the neighborhood. His nightly foot patrols and overly watchful eyes bring comfort to some, but he becomes increasingly harassing to the newlyweds. These persistent intrusions into their lives ultimately turn tragic when the couple decides to fight back.

Lakeview Terrace Specifications

The usually provocative Neil LaBute reigns in his more eccentric tendencies for this straightforward domestic thriller. Then again, LaBute, who divides his time between cinema and theater, didn't write the material. The bad vibes begin when Chris (Patrick Wilson) and Lisa Mattson (Kerry Washington) move in next door to widowed cop Abel Turner (Samuel L. Jackson, as nasty as Aaron Eckhart in LaBute's In the Company of Men). A strict father of two, Turner works in a diverse unit (Jay Hernandez plays his partner), but takes less kindly to interracial relationships. From the start, he makes the Mattsons uncomfortable with inappropriate remarks and unwarranted intrusions, like the security light trained on their bedroom, under the guise of self-appointed neighborhood guardian. Initially, Turner's actions exacerbate the tensions between the seemingly happy pair--Lisa wants to start a family, Chris wants to wait--until they realize they'll have to work together to protect themselves from their troubled neighbor. And since he's a member of the LAPD, Turner's colleagues have his back, despite the break-ins and flat tires bedeviling the Mattsons. When they make it clear they intend to stay, Turner takes his harassment campaign to the next level. The A-list cast does what they can, but the B-movie script from Howard Korder and Passenger 57's David Loughery, offers few surprises--at least to those who've seen Fatal Attraction and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle--and LaBute's by-the-books direction lacks its usual bite. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Stills from Lakeview Terrace (click for larger image)

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Check Out Devil In A Blue Dress: Music From The Motion Picture

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The Bone Collector (A Lincoln Rhyme Novel) Quality Best

The Bone Collector (A Lincoln Rhyme Novel) Overview

Look who's back to chill readers to the bone...

The first novel featuring Detective Lincoln Rhyme, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Stone Monkey.

The Bone Collector (A Lincoln Rhyme Novel) Specifications

The hero of Jeffery Deaver's thriller The Bone Collector is Lincoln Rhyme, a forensic scientist known to his peers as "the world's foremost criminalist." Rhyme will need all his reason--and his considerable stock of high-tech tools--about him to solve this latest brain-twister: a serial killer with method to his madness. In tried and true thriller fashion, the killer's crimes are described in lurid detail, as is the astounding technological equipment with which Rhyme examines the evidence--everything from an energy-dispersive x-ray unit to a mass spectrometer.

Every fictional detective has his or her gimmick, from Sherlock Holmes's violin to Nero Wolf's orchids, and Rhyme is no exception. He is a quadriplegic who can move nothing but a single finger. Gadget-philes will be in seventh heaven reading about Lincoln Rhyme's tools; other readers might feel the book could do with a few more plausible characters and a little less technology.

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