Five things you must not miss this week, including Best Coast, Roberto Bolaño, and a heavily bearded John C. Reilly in The Extra Man.
MUSICCrazy for You, Best Coast
Best Coast has been receiving a lot of buzz lately, and it’s not hard to see why; Crazy for You’s breezy, relateable love songs are hard to stop listening to. The album’s thirteen tracks mix Bethany Corsetino’s earnest confessions (“Every time you leave this house, everything falls apart,” she sings in “Goodbye”) with fun, catchy melodies. It’s one of those rare records that is as satisfying at a beach party as it is on your bed after your girl- or boyfriend leaves you. July 27
BOOKSThe Return, Roberto Bolaño
Bolano, who rose to literary stardom amongst the English-speaking literati with 2007′s translation of The Savage Detectives, is enjoying a Tupac-like posthumous career. The writer died in 2003, and yet volumes of his works are still being rapidly translated and published. People who have had the time to finish The Savage Detectives (unlike me) or the more-monstrous 2666, will have to read The Return, a collection of short stories, rather quickly, since Bolaño’s next translated work is already scheduled to be published next month. July 29.
MOVIESThe Extra Man, Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini
Despite using a variety of media (memoirs, graphic novels, Jason Schwartzman), Jonathan Ames’ subject matter — precociously troubled writers — rarely changes. The Extra Man adapts his novel of the same name and stars Kevin Kline, who plays a novelist who hangs out with New York’s upper class and lives with a middle-class crossdresser (Paul Dano). An improbably hirsute John C. Reilly also figures into the story somehow, making this movie that much more intriguing. July 30
MOVIESGet Low, Aaron Schneider
Like some family-friendly version of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawhatever County, Get Low centers around a small, wooded town in the South circa the 1930s. A mysterious hermit, Felix Bush (Robert Duvall), a hermit living in the outskirts, comes out of seclusion to throw himself a living funeral, forcing him to reconnect with the townsfolk and, probably, himself. Get Low is also a good opportunity for moviegoers to reconnect with Bill Murray and Sissey Spacek, both of whom fill out the cast of this festival-approved indie. July 30
TELEVISIONRubicon, AMC
“Not every conspiracy is a theory,” entices the tagline for this new drama from AMC, a network with a 2-0 record for original series (Breaking Bad and Mad Men) On the surface, Rubicon, a show about intelligence analysts and sinister, global secret societies, sounds like a male-centered version of Alias. But the show’s code-cracking protagonist, Will Travers, has a paranoid obsession with patterns and crossword puzzles, giving the story a Pi-like element that will surely foster a solid fan base. August 1
