musickrev

With a bundle of film noir tropes, a lead actor, Craig Stevens, doing a decent Cary Grant impersonation, a dialogue that's a strange blend of jazz and beat clichés and some jazz music that really is out of its time and place, this is nonetheless an enjoyable show. The plot meanders but pleasantly so and music, however anachronistic, does its job. The title theme remains one of the best ever.

There are a *lot* of episodes per season of "Cold Case" and that is most likely what keeps it from being better than it is. The formula of frequent flashbacks blending into a contemporary police procedural gets old quite quickly and the rigidity of the formula, complete with a lengthy slow motion wrap up accompanied by some usually well-known song, can be tedious. Sometimes it seems the show is little more than short stories of varying quality woven around a playlist. On the plus side, it explores a lot of social issues from an expansive historical viewpoint, the acting is adequate if a bit soapy sometimes and main recurring characters are attractive. But too often the show fails to hold your attention. That's a shame because there are some stand out episodes that justify the format.

An interesting document of how Wilco made what perhaps remains their most celebrated record, while losing a member and being dropped by their label. It's a documentary primarily for rock fans and contains a number of tense studio scenes, clips of shows, interviews with critics and music business types - nothing groundbreaking or really innovative, yet it tells the story well. The heart of the tale is the portrayal of the estrangement of band member Jay Bennett from the rest of the group, sad in that with a little more maturity at work it might never have happened, but in the context of the film the rift seems inevitable. And, as is so often the case, the breakup was probably for the best of all concerned in the end. Wilco are, to quote a Family song, a strange band - quite popular yet never quite mainstream, and this movie demonstrates why this is as well as anything.