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R.E.M. is sounding like a band again, instead of Whiny Michael and the Stipes.

I bought R.E.M.’s new album last week, and I’ve been listening to it on and off since then, and I’m starting to develop some thoughts. For better or for worse, I tend to examine each new R.E.M. album in the light of how does this album build on / relate to what has gone before, and how does it explore new territory? I’m happy to say that for me, Accelerate does both with vigor.

Living Well Is the Best Revenge (3:12)

Out of the door loud, fast. Sets the tone for the album. Companion tune to New Test Leper from New Adventures In HiFi, barking back at a media that, in the end, doesn’t really matter. Bonus points for the return of Mike Mills to background vocals (or at elast to appropriate volumes), and for Mike and Peter for a return to Document-quality rock-n-roll. R.E.M. is sounding like a band again, instead of Whiny Michael and the Stipes. - 4 Stars

Man-Sized Wreath (2:32)

I can’t quite get a grip on Man-Sized Wreath. Not sure if it’s the lyrics or the tune, but while I can already sing along to most of the lyrics (it’s catchy!) I can’t tell you why. Yet. 2 Stars

Supernatural Superserious (3:24)

First single, very hooky. Really fun to listen to. Companion tune to Nightswimming from Automatic For The People. Michael sings to the lamenting youth from Nightswimming, assuring that it doesn’t last. - 4 Stars

Hollow Man (2:39)

I love Hollow Man. Following tender mostly-acoustic verses, the chorus winds up and rings out like a 70’s sitcom theme (in a good way) then comes to a satisfyingly noisy spinout at the end. Some excellent Murmurs-era guitar work from Peter Buck (still looking for the specific song I’m thinking of). - 4 Stars

Houston (2:05)

Lovely, dirty organ that sounds like it was resurrected from a swamp, or from a flooded church (a true New Orleans Instrumental?). Also, includes an echo of the acoustic riff from Try Not To Breathe. - 3 Stars

Accelerate (3:34)

Michael’s invoking cartoons (”where’s the cartoon escape hatch for me”), which had me thinking of the Dr. Seuss references in The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight, but it comes amid a fast, full-of-fuzz song that conveys the fear, urgency, and tension in the lyric. - 3 Stars

Until the Day Is Done (4:09)

This is another one that’s growing on me. Followup to Ignoreland from Automatic For The People and would fit nicely on that album right after it. Another politically-flavored song, but is lamenting after the angry protest of Ignoreland. - 3 Stars

Mr. Richards (3:46)

Mr. Richards is a slow, loping, admonishment (beat-down? ) of the title character (who at one point I thought was referring to Michael Richards, of Sienfeld fame, but now I’m not so sure). - 3 Stars

Sing for the Submarine (4:51)

A weird song that is really growing on me, and (IMO) references several 3 R.E.M. songs from the past:

• Electron Blue, from Around The Sun by name
• In a stretch, a reference to the Machine from Green’s World Leader Pretend
• Fables of the Reconstruction’s Feeling Gravity’s Pull
• High Speed Train from Around The Sun
  • 3 Stars

Horse to Water (2:18)

You’re only as big as your battles

• 2 Stars

I’m Gonna DJ (2:08)

Somehow reminds me of 1995’s Revolution but without the cool “La La La”s. I suspect it might take the place of The End Of The World As We Know It as a show-closer, but I hope not. - 3 Stars

I setup our pre-lit Christmas tree last night, and discovered to my dismay that four different strands of the pre-installed lights were not lighting.

CRAP.

I tried checking the initial bulb in each strand (typically with a white socket), checking the fuses in the strands, and replacing various burnt-out bulbs. Nothing was working. I spent this morning helping the church men setup one of the church homes for a ladies event next week, and one of the guys mentioned checking Ace Hardware for the individual mini-light bulbs I was looking for (needed to replace burnt-out bulbs).

I stopped by Ace this afternoon and the first person I talked to (helpful employees!) showed me to the bulbs I needed. Head home, and they’re not doing the trick. Head back to Ace and tell them I’m trying to fix broken strands on a pre-lit tree. The girl I talked to took me right over and handed me this.

The “Lightkeeper Pro”? I was skeptical, but it was on sale and after being assured that I could bring it back if it did not work, I grabbed it and some fuses and headed back home once again.

Well dang it, if the “Lightkeeper Pro” doesn’t work exactly as advertised! I was able to test the fuses and bulbs as I went, the built-in tools for removing the bulb sockets for changing bulbs worked great, and saved my fingers q lot of pain, and more amazingly, the seemingly “magic” feature of fixing non-lighting strands by sending a static charge down the line - works! I was able to fix not only the strands that were acting up this year, but the two stands which were not working last year as well. Woo!

Jodi and I went to see The Bourne Ultimatum this weekend. I’d seen it a couple weeks ago, but wanted to see it again before reviewing it.

The Bourne Ultimatum is, in a word, excellent. The central characters and themes are carried over from the first two movies, but the story never feels like re-tread (stone?) of the preceding films.

I’ve fallen in love with the intimate, near-documentary style mastered by Paul Greengrass (this film and The Bourne Supremacy) and The Bourne Identity director Doug Liman. As viewers we feel like we’re right there with the the characters, lending an intimacy and tension to scenes that might have seemed slow or unimportant had we been watching from a comfortable distance.

While I loved the quiet, intimate moments, The Bourne Ultimatum is at it’s core an action movie, a spy thriller, and the action here is simultaneously both larger, more intense than in the previous films and easier to follow. The hand-to-hand fighting (and there’s a good bit of it) is tight, intricate work, taking place in hallway and small rooms.

The close quarters keeps the camera (and the viewer) right up with the combatants and the sense of intimacy once again heightens the tension. As well, Greengrass emphasizes that assassins can’t be choosers: fights involve books, candlesticks, misc toiletries, razor blades, and towels - whatever is at hand is turned into a weapon and the stakes seem the higher for it.

Maybe it’s a guy thing, but I love me a good car chase, and Ultimatum delivers. The Fugitive may have pioneered the wireless destructo-cam (where small cameras transmitting footage wirelessly are placed in scenery that is going to be destroyed, so as to capture everything up to and including the destruction of the camera), but this movie uses them with wild, reckless abandon. No vantage point is safe from a head-on, or tail-on, or side-impact collision, and the result is shots that had me climbing out of my seat.

Bourne uses his vehicle (a commandeered police/security cruiser) not only as transportation, but as a weapon - stopping suddenly to force a rear-end collision with a following vehicle or reversing direction at high speed into another (sacrificing the entire trunk to put an SUV chasing him out of commission).

In the end, my greatest pleasure in the Bourne series is that I feel like I was taken seriously as a viewer. There are no “winks” at the audience, no 4th wall shenanigans, no tongue-in-cheek references or smart-ass parting shots after each kill. These movies aim to entertain, but they also expect me to keep my brain engaged. And that’s are rare thing in action these days.

4.5 out of 5, um, whatevers.

Realized tonight while watching that Equilibrium is Dead Poets Society with gun-fu.

Jodi and I are big John Cusack fans - I can think of only one movie of his we’ve seen that we didn’t like (1993’s superbly casted but poorly written Identity).

So in filling our recently acquired NetFlix queue, I snagged Better Off Dead, which I missed when I was 14 but which Jodi and I watched in the last few days.

What can I say… Better Off Dead is a typically hysterical Cusack black comedy, full of neurotic and existential angst. What it also is filled with is odd bits of off-beat animation, both traditional and claymation, strange non-sequiters like the psychotic paperboy, and characters too weird to explain at all (i.e. Lane’s mother and younger brother). And we laughed all the way through it.

Moments of particular merit (or pure mind-boggling “wha”-ness):

• Cusack doing Frankenstein
• an unexpected character in an aardvark-fur coat
• the skiing paperboy

4 out of 5 claymation hamburgers.

Adelina and I went to see Happy Feet last weekend… the movie was really good (if a bit preachy towards the end), but I wish that Adelina had been able to see the real penguins in March of the Penguins first. Luckily, it came on TV this weekend and we were able to TiVo it, so she got to see it while the other was still fresh in her mind. We all enjoyed the movie, though we decided that emperor penguins, while being cute and fuzzy as chicks and fun and funny as adults, lead a life that we’re glad we don’t.

High Fidelity: A great, typical-for-John-Cusack film. Lots of interesting people, extremely good acting on many fronts. John and Joan Cusack are always great together.