Media
Review > Media MixA roundup of this month’s hottest new releases.
words by > Scott Steinberg
>GAMES
Lego Star Wars II
LucasArts $29.99 (PC), $39.99 (GameCube/PS2/Xbox), $49.99 (Xbox 360) Rated E
No Jedi mind tricks here; just gloriously old-school, arcade-style fi re fi ghts starring dozens of series standouts, including Luke, Leia and Han Solo. Packing blaster or lightsaber, solve puzzles and stomp the Emperor’s minions while dueling your way through the original trilogy’s most memorable battles. Even more fun than cruising along in X-Wings or mowing enemies down from an AT-ST walker: tag-teaming the adventure with a friend, who can jump in and provide backup at any time. Adorably square-jawed characters, options for evildoing (try Darth Vader’s choke powers) and destructible environments make it the type of title even serious blockheads can enjoy.
Splinter Cell: Double Agent
UbiSoft $49.99 (GameCube/ PC/PS2/Xbox), $59.99 (Xbox 360) Rating Pending
For the first time, observe as secret agent Sam Fisher plays both sides of the fi eld. Collaborating with the NSA and known terrorists alike, infi ltrate enemy enclaves using futuristic gadgets and weaponry. Every decision affects the story’s outcome: Spy hard, or watch the best-laid plans literally blow up in your face.
>DVD
Pretty in Pink: Everything’s Duckie Edition
(Paramount Home Entertainment) MPAA Rating: PG-13 $14.99
Teens discover peer pressure and hormones don’t mix in John Hughes’ seminal 1980s dramedy. Two worlds collide when unlikely heartthrob Andie (Molly Ringwald) falls for rich kid Blane (Andrew McCarthy). Nevermind that—as always, longtime friend/admirer Duckie (Jon Cryer) is left in the lurch. Now with beaucoup de bonuses.
EXTRAS: Making of video, director commentary, favorite scenes, original ending, epilogue, photo gallery.
>MUSIC
Barenaked Ladies
Barenaked Ladies Are Me (Desperation/Nettwerk) $18.98
Outside their native Canada, Barenaked Ladies are best known for 1998 novelty chart-topper “One Week,” a song that proved hip-hop is best left to professionals. Still, that track was an anomaly; most of the Ladies’ work has been a pleasant wave of ’70s soft rock, gentle humor and driving power-pop.
Barenaked Ladies Are Me, the band’s ninth album, fi nds the Toronto group in perfect form, though. “Adrift” is a pretty break-up song distinguished by clever wordplay (“the onion rings/the phone makes me cry”). The sparse, nearly spoken-word “Bank Job,” meanwhile, recounts a heist gone dreadfully wrong, ending in a getaway from a “bankful of nuns.” Afterward, the band skips genres with easy dexterity: “Everything Had Changed” is a traditional waltz, while “Sound of Your Voice” seems a forgotten classic rock masterpiece, and “Take It Back” evokes trip-hop’s glory days.
A compendium of what the group does best, it’s also a step forward technologically. Traditional record buyers get 13 songs; online music purveyors, a whopping 27 tracks, all of equal worth. Cliché or not, here’s hoping one (or more) of these jams can rewrite the band’s sonic legacy.
Sugarcult
Lights Out (V2/Artemis) $15.98
There’s nothing wrong with making great pop records, but we prefer more behind the music than just snappy hooks and attitude. Happily, Lights Out, the third album by LA-based indie rockers Sugarcult, successfully manages to be both maddeningly catchy and somewhat thought-provoking. Tracks like “Do It Alone” and “Riot” rock out like the best of Cheap Trick or Lit while hinting at something darker—presumably, the band’s hometown. Listen to songs like “Dead Living” and “Los Angeles,” and you’ll get a good idea lead singer Tim Pagnotta isn’t thrilled with the City of Angels. Intriguing.