The James Logan Courier

By Mark Stryker
Detroit Free Press (MCT)

There's a lot to admire about "Songs of Mirth and Melancholy" (3 stars, Marsalis Music), the rewarding new duet album by saxophonist Branford Marsalis and pianist Joey Calderazzo. Calderazzo has been a mainstay of Marsalis' quartet since 1998, and the rapport the two have built comes into bold relief without bass and drums in the mix.

At its best, the music strikes a compelling balance between attention to detail and relaxed improvisation. Primarily a collection of uniquely tailored ballads, the album creates a mood of weighty contemplation, introspective but never hermetic. Marsalis and Calderazzo put their chips on melodic integrity and development, staying in the moment and patiently drawing out the formal and emotional character of the material.

Faiza Elmasry, VOA News

"Farishta" means 'angel' in Dari, the widely spoken language in northern Afghanistan. It’s also the title of a novel by Patricia McArdle, a retired American diplomat who spent a year in Afghanistan.

Over her 27-year career as a U.S. diplomat, McArdle served in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe. But it was her last assignment in Afghanistan that inspired her to write about her experiences.

However, instead of a memoir, she opted to write a novel inspired by real people and events.

“I couldn’t really use their names without compromising their safety and the work they’re doing in Afghanistan," she says.

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)

In the land of video game characters who have recently returned from extended leave, all the headlines belong to Duke Nukem.

But if you want to read the real success story, you'd best train your eyes on Alice, whose comeback validates not only her place in today's gaming climate, but the legitimacy of a genre — family-friendly platforming wrapped inside a bloody, deranged, M-rated shell — that hasn't had much representation in the 10-plus years since "American McGee's Alice" came, left its mark and went.

At its core, "Alice: Madness Returns" plays by many of the same rules that governed its predecessor, splitting platforming and combat roughly down the middle and spreading it out across a lengthy (15 hours, give or take) journey through some large, diverse and creatively sovereign interpretations of Lewis Carroll's imagination.

By Colin Covert
Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (MCT)

MINNEAPOLIS — In "The Trip," English comedian Steve Coogan has created a trans-Atlantic cousin to "Sideways," a hilarious yet melancholy comedy overflowing with insight into human behavior. Coogan and fellow comic Rob Brydon take a gastronomical tour of England's scenic lake country, sharing conversations in which they reveal the bruises and satisfactions of encroaching middle age.

Coogan and Brydon play slightly fictionalized versions of themselves — a frustrated would-be star whose aristocratic good looks are starting to melt, and a contented family man who hides behind a nonstop stream of impressions and gags. The film has no screenplay credit. The performers improvised a brilliant picture about success and failure, old marriages and new flings, heartache and friendship. The laughs are laced with honest feelings that sneak up and knock you flat.

By Jonathan Takiff
Philadelphia Daily News (MCT)

PHILADELPHIA — Jill Scott's former students — creatively awakened to "Macbeth" by her notion of singing Willie the Shake to doo-wop tunes — might not agree.

But the rest of the world owes a big thanks to the grumpy principal at Dobbins High School who so dispirited Scott as an English-teacher trainee, telling her she'd soon "get over" her idealism, that the young woman quit the gig to start working full time at even more creative endeavors.

Clearly, things have turned out well for the singer/poet/actress and community philanthropist from North Philadelphia who's become an artist of international renown with her poignant, proud and conscientious variations on "neo-soul" music. Hers is a sonic art uniquely shaped to be populist and highfalutin', demure yet feisty and sometimes even naughty by nature.

By Tish Wells
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)


Got a tweener child with a taste for creepy horror and time-travel stories?

Send them "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children."

This first novel by Ransom Riggs deals with young Jacob Portman and his quest to find out the truth behind his Grandpa's wild stories.

What he finds is the classic quest story and more. The story has elements of fantasy, adventure, adolescence and grief. (Note: The opening chapter is not for the weak-stomached, with the graphic murder of Grandpa by the evil that will haunt his grandson.)

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)

As perhaps you feared, the real-life saga of "Duke Nukem Forever's" development — 14 years, numerous reboots, a developer's demise and a 13th-hour rescue after the project had seemingly been buried for the final time — is more engrossing than the game itself. When the public finally gets its hands on "Forever" this week, more players than not will wonder what, exactly, took so long.

At the same time, "Forever" is more good than bad and more fun than not. Its spottiness is doubtlessly the fault of taking an eighth-grader's lifetime to complete development, but it's also born out of a willingness to try (and sometimes succeed at) things most contemporary first-person shooters would never attempt.

Because "Forever's" titular character has a sense of humor more reflective of gaming's juvenilia than its present condition, "Forever" finds itself wildly at odds with the same audience that was raring to play it in 1997. Time hasn't been kind to Duke, and while some of "Forever's" self-referential humor is pretty funny — Duke is now a celebrity with more endorsements than Krusty the Clown — most of it falls flat (often embarrassingly so).

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)

It stands to reason, unless you're unreasonable, that "Dirt 3" isn't going to be the leap forward for off-road rally racing that its immaculate predecessor was only two years ago.
That doesn't mean, however, that some pleasant surprises don't lie in wait.

From the top, the best news about "D3" is that everything that was great about "Dirt 2" either remains great or has ever-so-subtly improved.

Visually, it's still at the top of the racing game class, equally in terms of car detail, track detail and how good everything looks in motion. "D3" increases the variables with regard to weather and time of day, and while a dirt track race under the sun looks predictably terrific, a late-night race on snowy terrain is jaw-dropping (and a little unnerving when you realize how little light there is to guide you).

By Tish Wells
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

Even before the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie, pirates were romantic.
Now, in "The Captain Jack Sparrow Handbook" Jason Heller brings you a guide to all things (Disney) pirate.

Piracy has been with us from the beginning of time. Julius Caesar was taken prisoner, ransomed and later crucified his capturers. The infamous Blackbeard looted ships in the eighteenth century. There was little attractive about pirates.

However, don't let historical fact get in the way of the "Handbook."

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)

Fans of Rockstar-published games might look at "L.A. Noire's" marketing, see the usual Rockstar game symptoms, and very understandably assume that, just as "Red Dead Redemption" was "Grand Theft Auto" in the Old West, this is "GTA" in 1940s Los Angeles.

But while "Noire" looks and sounds like a "GTA" game, it plays almost nothing like one. In fact, it plays quite like no other game out there, and if you can give it a chance to grow on you, this police detective simulator achieves its objective skillfully and with exceptional confidence.

First, a word on what "Noire" is not. Though you're free to explore this massive, meticulously replicated chunk of Los Angeles however you like, this isn't your typical open-world game. There are random street crimes scattered outside the game's main storyline, but the overwhelming majority of "Noire's" activity lies along the main road.

By Amanpreet Tatlah, Courier Staff Writer

The latest upcoming band is making its way to even more success than ever: All Star Weekend’s popular single “Not Your Birthday” will be featured in the upcoming movie “Prom”. The song is about giving people who are feeling down something brighter to think about—to party like it’s "not your birthday."

The video of this single has a gymnasium dance kick to it with a school setting. Their single is used for the day of the prom.

All of the singles of this upcoming band have something for everyone to listen and easily relate to. Their purpose is to have people connect with their music and make situations better for themselves if in a bad mood.

By Tish Wells, McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

Not even changing the cockroach into a kitten can help the latest literary mash-up—The Meowmorphosis.

Coleridge Cook takes a well-written stab at Franz Kafka's depressing novella The Metamorphosis and turns it into ... well, a slightly less gloomy tale. Where Kafka turned his lead character, Gregor Samsa, into a beetle, Cook transforms him into an adorable fluffy kitten.

Kafka was an early twentieth century Czech writer whose stories and novels explored the helplessness of the individual in the face of dehumanizing bureaucracies, and other topics.