Review: Depp's 'Rum Diary' worth the wait

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Review: Clarkson's 'Stronger'

Kelly Clarkson pulls off the ''Mr. Know It All'' because you're never too old for a good wag-your-finger-at-the-boys song."Stronger" is Clarkson's older-better-tougher-smarter albumIn 2011, Clarkson is still young enough to pull off gleefully bratty kiss-offs like "Einstein"Clarkson's voice is made for anthems, and the slow, snoozy ballads here don't do it justice
(EW.com) -- Kelly Clarkson will turn 30 next year. By then, "Idol's" favorite ex-waitress will have grown from America's sweetheart (see: 2004's "Breakaway") to a slightly goth brooder (2007's "My December") to pop's resident angry grrrl (2009's "All I Ever Wanted") right before the proud eyes of Mom and Dad -- or as we call them, Paula and Simon.
In 2011, she's still young enough to pull off gleefully bratty kiss-offs like ''Einstein,'' on which she does the math for a no-good boyfriend: ''Dumb plus dumb equals you.'' But it may not be long before she can't get away with writing songs with ''suck'' in the title.
So it's the perfect time for "Stronger," Clarkson's older-better-tougher-smarter album.
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The excellent pink-bubblegum explosion ''I Forgive You'' plays like a heartfelt postscript to the guy who left her in ''Since U Been Gone,'' with Clarkson's lived-through-this vocals making the lyrics even more poignant: ''We were just a couple of kids...no shame, no blame.''
She's got Gwen Stefani's just-a-girl strut down on ''You Can't Win,'' a punchy guitar rave-up about making peace with your inner walking disaster. Best of all is ''What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger),'' a throbbing glitter-disco tribute to believing that it really does get better. (By the time you finish this review, 9,000 pride-parade DJs will have already added it to their playlists.)
Box office report: 'Paranormal Activity 3' scores best October opening ever with $54 mil
Clarkson's voice is made for anthems, and too many of the slow, snoozy ballads here don't do it justice. But she pulls off the downtempo ''Mr. Know It All'' -- because you're never too old for a good wag-your-finger-at-the-boys song. B+

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Review:Paranormal Activity 3

The filmmakers have fun with the archetypal image of a white-sheeted costume ghost, but mostly what they're aces at is timing."Paranormal Activity 3" implicitly understands that we've been through enough tricksThe movie is a prequel, set in September 1988Katie (Chloe Csengery), will grow up to be the Katie Featherstone in the first film
(CNN) -- It would be no exaggeration to say that we spend the 89 minutes of "Paranormal Activity 3" waiting -- taut with tension -- to see a face.
Not just any face, mind you. A face of nightmare terror and shivery awe, one that will shoot a scary volt of revelation right through us. We're never entirely sure if that face is going to arrive, but the anticipation is everything. The movie sets us up for it early on, with an amazing shock as a closet door is opened.
Of course, we're also waiting because, with two other "Paranormal Activity" films behind it, "Paranormal Activity 3" implicitly understands that we've been through enough tricks in these movies -- the doors that open and slam shut, the thuds and booms and scratchy skitters on the soundtrack, the kitchen utensils that fall with a crash, the spectral shapes that you can almost make out -- to now want to see something more. "Paranormal Activity 3" features variations on every one of the tricks I just mentioned, and a few additional ones (they all work), but more than the first two films, it tweaks our desire to put a face on evil.
The movie is a prequel, set in September 1988, though it doesn't exactly look like an '80s period piece. The spacious, high-ceilinged Carlsbad, California, tract home in which it takes place looks a lot like the one in the more contemporary "Paranormal Activity 2," with tastefully bland furniture that might have come out of the Raymour & Flanigan suburban-gothic collection.
This time, the family consists of Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith, who's like a skinny young Gary Dell'Abate), a wedding videographer who has banks of monitors and editing equipment in his home studio; his big-haired sexy wife, Julie (Lauren Bittner); and her two preteen daughters from a previous marriage.
They are Katie (Chloe Csengery), who will grow up to be the Katie Featherstone character in the first film, and angel-faced Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown), from "Paranormal Activity 2," here an enigmatic child who can communicate with the spirit world. It's one of this haunted-house movie's best jokes that the ghost on hand is Kristi's invisible friend, ''Toby,'' whom she talks to with a mixture of intimacy and intimidated formality.
As soon as the family begins to hear mysterious sounds in their new home, Dennis insists on rigging up a handful of video cameras as makeshift surveillance devices. We get time-coded views of the parents' and kids' bedrooms -- and, most cleverly, there's a camera mounted on the base of a rotating fan that pans back and forth, with fearful deliberation, from the kitchen, with its pristine white cabinets, to the living room, with its creepy looped lamp in the foreground.
The directors, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, are the fascinatingly deadpan pranksters who made "Catfish," last year's is-it-a-documentary-or-a-rigged-stunt? investigation into the fake identities that people can forge on the Internet. They turn out to be the perfect filmmakers to create a banal surface reality that's just warped enough to keep us on tenterhooks.
The bottom line, for me, is this: I don't scare easily at horror films (that's one of the reasons I tend to pan them), but I watched "Paranormal Activity 3" in a state of high anxiety. Schulman and Joost have fun with the archetypal image of a white-sheeted costume ghost, but mostly what they're aces at is timing. They know just how to thread a handheld camera up the stairs, down a hallway, and into the scattered bric-a-brac of a middle-class children's bedroom, settling at just the right moment upon a talking teddy bear that plays as a joke, even as a part of you momentarily thinks: Is that bear possessed?
They also make terrific use of characters like Dennis's assistant, a Napoleon Dynamite type, played with an infectious spark by Dustin Ingram, who ends up huddling in a darkened bathroom with young Katie for a scary game of ''Bloody Mary'' (say it three times and wait to see what happens).
There's no denying that the "Paranormal Activity" films adhere, by now, to a formula; this one, almost by definition, lacks the originality that made the first one so startling. But when you consider how the grimy, mangle-fest "Saw" sequels have ruled the Halloween season in recent years, it's refreshing to think that the spook-show franchise that has now caught the popular imagination has replaced depravity and sadism with a 21st-century, video-reality version of old-school campfire shivers. In her review of "The Shining," Pauline Kael asked -- derisively -- ''Who wants to see evil in daylight, through a wide-angle lens?'' The answer, it turns out, is everybody.
EW.com rating: A-
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Review: Coldplay's new album

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota Chris Martin has fully embraced his role as a not-terribly-cool guy who's good at preaching perseverance.On "Mylo Xyloto," the choruses are bigger, the optimism more optimisticCascading choral vocals augment Martin's soaring refrain on "Paradise""Mylo Xyloto" was inspired by 1970s New York graffiti

(Rolling Stone) -- In the three years since Coldplay's last album, the world's problems have gotten a little more urgent.

A cratering economy, riots from Tahrir to Tottenham, the prolonged ubiquity of the Kardashians -- these are things that can't be solved with a lullaby, even from the biggest band to emerge in the 21st century. Chris Martin knows this. But Coldplay's fifth album -- and most ambitious yet -- suggests Martin cares too much not to at least try to help.

Coldplay recently entered their second decade together -- the same point Springsteen made "Born in the U.S.A." and U2 made "Achtung Baby" -- so it comes as no surprise they'd want a zeitgeist-y, big-statement album of their own. On "Mylo Xyloto," the choruses are bigger, the textures grander, the optimism more optimistic. It's a bear-hug record for a bear-market world.

Aided again by Brian Eno, Coldplay are still dabbling in the kind of cool-weird artiness they truly went for on 2008's "Viva La Vida." But where that album sometimes seemed like a self-conscious attempt to diversify their sound, with a world-music vibe and U2-style sound effects, this time Coldplay have integrated the "Enoxification" (as they call it) into their own down-the-middle core: Check out the cascading choral vocals that augment Martin's soaring refrain on "Paradise." Prominent elements prop up the sonic cathedrals: Jonny Buckland's guitar, which is riffier and more muscular than ever, and Euro-house synths that wouldn't sound out of place at a nightclub in Ibiza.

Martin says "Mylo Xyloto" was inspired by 1970s New York graffiti and the Nazi--resistance movement known as the White Rose -- it's probably no coincidence both were about young people embracing art in times of turmoil. Here, Coldplay rage in their own lovably goofy way. On the rave-tinged "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall," Martin imagines a revolution powered by dancing kids. "Hurts Like Heaven" might be the first Coldplay tune to which you can bust something resembling a move. The lyrics seem to be about fighting the Man -- "Don't let 'em take control!" -- but Martin sounds ebullient over a sproingy New Wave beat.

Explicit political statements aren't really Martin's thing; he's in the uplift business. "Mylo Xyloto" suggests he's fully embraced his role as a not-terribly-cool guy who's good at preaching perseverance, in a voice that's warm and milky like afternoon tea. By the time he croons, "Don't let it break your heart!" over "Where the Streets Have No Name"-style guitar sparkle near the album's end, you can't help but think he's an inspiration peddler who believes what he's belting.

Oddly enough, the best moments are darker ones. "Princess of China" is a ballad about loss and regret, co-starring Rihanna. It's a partnership that probably came together over champagne brunch at Jay-Z's, but its synth-fuzz groove is offhandedly seductive. It's followed by "Up in Flames," a minimalist slow jam. Martin sings nakedly about how breakups can feel like the end of the world, or maybe it's about the actual end of the world. Either way, as end-times lullabies go, it's pretty sweet.

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