Notes fromUnder theGround:Part ThreeClick herefor part twoFAREWELL (Pacific Place, 5/10)Cold War drama set in the 1980s.Two directors [as stars]..."To our babuschkas"...East Germanwife, works as an engineer...Niels Arestrup (A Prophet)...[Fran-çois] Mitterand..."decadent Western music"..."Keen" (Queen),"Waving your banner all over the place"..."Johnny Walkman"...more intrigue than thrills; about marriage, relationships...Pier-re [Guillaume Canet] and Sergei [Emir Kusturica]...Westernerand Easterner become emboldened...Burn after Reading...notpro-communist, not pro-Western-style democracy either.Farewell opens in Seattle on 8/6 (venue TBA). CAS

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Humon theHigh-wayVariousArtists,Made inIceland3, Ice-landMusicExportDon't expect to find Björk on this 20-track compilation (then a-gain, she moved away years ago). Instead, Made in Iceland 3showcases new or lesser known acts, not counting Emiliana Tor-rini ("Beggar's Prayer") and Sigur Rós singer Jonsi ("Boy Lilikoi").As expected, electronic artists dominate, though most are quitemelodic. Exceptions include the alt-country sylings of Lay Low("Aukalagio") and Snorri Helgason ("Freeze Out"). Also Ben Frost("Hibakusja") boldly goes into industrial territory, but without a-bandoning song structure completely, just submerging it in buzz.If no one s

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I Am an Anarchist In sortingthroughsome oldemails re-cently, I came across a message to Mom about Von Trier's latest provocation. After dragging my feet for a few weeks, I finally caught Antichrist this weekend, just so I could be part of theconversation. Not recommended as a film. It remindsme of several that are far better, but it certainly givesyou something to talk about..should you wish to do so.I'm amazed that my friend [redacted] would describe itas "feminist." That's hardly the case. Charlotte Gains-bourg, best actress winner at Cannes, plays a one-timefeminist scholar who goes nuts after the death of her son. Willem Dafoe plays

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The Same Love ThatMade Me LaughBill Withers, +'Justments, ReelMusic/Sony MusicEntertainment"I've gotta take a tonof lies to get an oun-ce of truth from you." -- Bill Withers, "You"Though Bill Withers released +'Justments at the height of his '70s fame, it didn't meet with the same success as records like Just as I Am, which is ironic asit captures Bill at his best--earthy vocals, laid-back grooves, Fla-menco guitar filigrees--just slightly less poptastic than usual.The more I listen, the more it sounds like a lost classic, ratherthan a flawed recording that got lost in the shuffle. If there areno clear hit singles, his unheralded songwriting is in fin

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Spiral and UnfurlThe Purrs, Tear-ing DownPais-leyGar-den,Big Damn Deal Music Their sixth release, Tearing Down Paisley Garden,represents another solid effort from this Seattle quartet. De-spite the title, it sounds more like the Purrs are cultivatingthe same sonic plot they first laid down in 2006 (think RainParade and the Church). Back then, I noted that they pro-duce "a nice strong dose of psych-pop" with "languid num-bers" that "spiral and unfurl into the air like smoke." Four years later, their formula remains much the same. There'snothing wrong with that; if you liked it then, you'll like it now.And maybe it's partly because the Rol

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Movie ofthe Month: Part 19I recently reviewed the following documentary for VideoLibrarian, and thought the results were worth sharing.ALICE - A Look into Alice's Ad-ventures in Wonderland [***1/2](Gerry Malir, UK, 2009, 90 mins.)Without Alice Lidell, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland wouldn'texist. This British documentary explores the relationship betweenthe author and his muse, which came about through Lewis Car-roll's employment with Oxford's Christchurch College, where A-lice's father served as dean. When the mathematics lecturer, bornCharles Dodgson, met Alice in 1855, she was three years old, tooyoung to befriend, so he initially socialized m

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JuneReviewsThese arethe reviewsand otherpieces I'mworking onthis month.Amazon DVDs: Hawthorne - Season One [three-disc set] (with Jada Pinkett Smith), Cemetery Junction (with RickyGervais and Ralph Fiennes), and My Son, My Son, WhatHave Ye Done? (click here for my Siffblog review).Amazon Theatrical: Get Low (with RobertDuvall and Bill Murray) and The Kids Are AllRight (with Annette Bening and Julianne Moore).Still playing (or yet to open): Alice in Wonderland, The Concert, Countdown to Zero, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Exit Through the Gift Shop, The Ghost Writer, Mother and Child, Nowhere Boy, Oceans, and Please Give.Siffblog: Countdown to Zero and The Til

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