This album by a fairly obscure downtempo act feels very much like the soundtrack to a quirky art house film. The instrumentation is orchestral and lush, the tracks mellow and relaxed, and the styles ranging from Nordic to African grooves. Sophie Barker lends her soulful vocals to this gorgeous record.

Grade: A-.

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Jon Gries stars in this quirky low-budget independent flick about a karaoke singer touring the west with his manager, trying to win contests for gas money. The strangeness of the characters makes this an entertaining rental. We follow these two perpetually-broke men as they make continuous hapless missteps.

Grade: B-.

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Drummer Louis Hayes leads a quintet in this 1960 set of hard bop charts, joining forces with Yusef Lateef on tenor saxophone and Nat Adderley on cornet. Most of the music is written by Adderley, Lateef, or pianist Barry Harris. The playing here is straight ahead with some fantastic solos.

Grade: B+.

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This strange ISA-nominated thriller tells the story of an unemployed television cameraman interviewing a man who claims to be the assassin of John F. Kennedy. The script is tight and intriguing as the story unfolds. The grainy handheld documentary style of the picture keeps the suspense level very high.

Grade: B.

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Buddy DeFranco takes up the bass clarinet as he leads a talented group of musicians (including such names as Lee Morgan, Art Blakey, Freddie Hill, and Curtis Fuller) on a beautiful set of tunes that features some standard bebop charts. DeFranco is on fire playing this unusual, yet agile instrument.

Grade: A-.

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This Academy Award winning documentary focuses on an elementary school in a troubled neighborhood in Philadelphia, where most of the students live with single parents. As the children struggle with issues in their outside lives—violence, drugs, and poverty—the administrators and teachers try to provide a positive educational environment.

Grade: B+.

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This prequel to Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove is based on the final novel of the series. This television adaptation follows the exploits of a pair of Texas Rangers as they fight Comanches in Texas. The acting is great, the sets are realistic, and the story is engaging and entertaining.

Grade: A+.

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The Whitman brothers, played by Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman, are traveling across India in this astonishingly quirky comedy, written and directed by Wes Anderson. With garish use of color, eccentric music, and minimalist acting, this picture has a very unique style against the colorful backdrop of India.

Grade: B+.

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Will Smith stars in this incredibly entertaining post-apocalyptic thriller as a doctor who survives an engineered viral epidemic that leaves him as the only human remaining in New York City. Implausible science requires a suspension of disbelief, but the acting and script are reasonably decent and the suspense palpable.

Grade: A-.

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Sean Penn directs this based-on-a-true-story picture about Chris McCandless, a young man who left everything behind to trek across the United States in a great adventure, which resulted in his death in the Alaskan wilderness. Emile Hirsch stars as the wanderer in this heart-breaking masterpiece.

Grade: A.

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