Cornershop Handcream for a Generation Three Stars It's a crying shame that Cornershop didn't make an album exclusively of dance songs. As its new album Handcream for a Generation now stands, the six dance and funk tracks fail to outweigh the remaining six generic, pop-rock and pseudo-reggae selections.
Two of Five Stars Remember when "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace" came out? Everyone thought the story was pretty good, but Jar-Jar Binks was an annoying nuisance in the film, only a source of cheap comic relief aimed at kids. The same holds true in "Jurassic Park III." Unlike "Jurassic Park," the second sequel relies on stupid, childlike comedy that cheapens the film with shallow laughs and a shallower plot.
Two of Five Stars Take Sigourney Weaver in ?Aliens,? Orson Scott Card?s novel ?Ender?s Game,? and the aliens from ?Pitch Black.? Toss them in a blender, but filter out every bit of emotional connection that one might feel for any of the characters in the aforementioned creative works. So goes ?Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.? Based on the highly successful string of video games and animated films, ?Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within? would be expected to entice viewers, much the way ?Lara Croft: Tomb Raider? lit up screens earlier this summer.
Four of Five Stars Jewel-thief movies are old news. They always involve some big prize that?s impossible to obtain, yet the valiant protagonist pulls off the impossible. Luckily, ?The Score? plays off the age-old storyline with interesting twists and turns that are reminiscent of such works as ?The Sixth Sense? and Agatha Christie?s ?And Then There Were None.?
Four of Five Stars Rufus Wainwright has answered the hype. After being named by Rolling Stone as the best new artist in 1998 and garnering a spot on many top-ten albums lists that year, Wainwright has released an intimate, personal portrait of himself in Poses. On tracks like "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" Wainwright mainly looks inward.
Two of Five Stars So Mark McGrath and his band of merry musicians took a break from working the Candies ad campaign and serving as guest hosts on MTV to release another album, Sugar Ray. The self-titled release, the band's fourth, carries on with the formula that helped keep the band afloat after their breakout hit, "Fly" in 1998.
4/5 Stars In an Indiana Jones-meets-Bond girl adventure, Angelina Jolie delivers a believable performance as the ever-beautiful, ever-cunning tomb raider, Lara Croft. "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" doesn't shoot itself in the foot by attempting to recreate a scenario from any of the Eidos Interactive game titles; instead, the film's writers weave a new adventure around Croft and adversary Manfred Powell (Iain Glen) as they compete to obtain an ancient artifact buried in the far corners of the world. Refreshingly, Jolie portrays Croft without the sense of sexual exploitation that
4/5 Stars Blues Traveler is back. After being knocked against the ropes in 1999 with the death of founding member Bobby Sheehan and serious heart surgery for eclectic frontman/harmonica player John Popper, Blues Traveler have returned with a new lineup and a multi-layered new sound. Though Blues Traveler has featured keyboards and pianos on other studio releases, the group recruited Ben Wilson as their full time keys player prior to recording Bridge.
