Alex Goodman

Latest stories

• Soundbite: Broken Bells

  March 7, 2010 at 11:11 p.m.

  A new band calling itself Broken Bells, with a debut album of the same name, might attract associations with Christmas carols turned violent or the aftermath of a sleigh-riding accident.

• Weekend review: Joni Mitchell’s "The Fiddle and the Drum”

  March 1, 2010 at 1:07 a.m.

  Remove from James Cameron’s epic “Avatar” all the explosions, cornball dialogue and the massive-scale technology, leaving only the central premise that humankind is destroying nature through war and environmental neglect.

• Concert Review: Randy Newman

  Feb. 22, 2010 at 12:23 a.m.

  About halfway through his two-hour set Friday night at Royce Hall, Randy Newman lost track of his own song. Granted it was one of the newer ones, “Laugh and Be Happy,” from his 2008 album “Harps and Angels,” but it was still his song, and it wasn’t the first mistake he’d made.

• Movie reassures those with phobias

  Feb. 17, 2010 at midnight

  Immersion therapy, in the language of psychology, refers to a treatment approach such that patients confront their phobias head-on, with increasing intensity.

• The story behind the filmmaker

  Feb. 12, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.

  Atop the pantheon of Russian artists, alongside Fyodor Dostoevsky and his psychological novels, sits Andrei Tarkovsky.

• Soundbite: Wale and Audible Mainframe

  Feb. 3, 2010 at 1:15 p.m.

  A suggestion for any aspiring rapper: Turn the volume down a bit.

• Screen Scene: “Saint John of Las Vegas"

  Jan. 29, 2010 at 12:32 a.m.

  The title “Saint John of Las Vegas” is an odd phrase: Vegas is as much a place for saints as Disneyland is for college students.

• Soundbite: Spoon

  Jan. 19, 2010 at 12:26 a.m.

  Britt Daniel, Spoon’s delightful front man, sounds more like a Brit than any other singer in Texas. But the fact remains that he is ours, America, and we should milk that fact for all the nationalist pride it’s worth.

• Best of 2009

  Dec. 7, 2009 at 1:15 a.m.

  It’s hard to imagine a year when one of the most legendary pop icons of all time dies, some crazy lady pops out eight minions, and everyone and their mom lines up to see sparkly, blood-sucking tween icons practice abstinence.

• Decade in Review: Albums

  Dec. 3, 2009 at 3:31 a.m.

  The last decade never clearly tied itself to a single musical trend, the way hair metal defined the ’80s or grunge the ’90s – if anything, we saw the emergence of hip-hop and its reliance on the hit single.