Bloglander

Each Tuesday, we’re going to make sure you don’t miss out by highlighting a few new music and video releases to help you figure out how to spend your hard-earned home-entertainment dollar.

Here is what’s new and worth your attention, released Tuesday, Oct. 21: 

MUSIC

Mark Lanegan Band, Phantom Radio. The former Screaming Trees singer continues to have one of the most interesting and musically ambitious post-grunge careers of all the acts that came out of Seattle way back when. You can stream Ellensburg native Lanegan's latest right here. Or just give it a sample with this vid: 


Sleater-Kinney, Start Together. This box set includes vinyl versions of the pioneering lady-punk trio's seven albums, plus a hardcover book tracking their history. It's a perfect way for the vinyl junkies to get ready for the band's 2015 reunion, including a tour starting right here in Spokane. 


Jessie Ware, Tough Love. Ware is a British electro-soul singer that everyone waiting for the next Adele album should be listening to. Her music is smooth, sexy and worthy of comparisons to Sade.  


FILM

If you're looking to turn your brain off, there are certainly some options for you among today's DVD and Blu-ray releases, chief among them the Cameron Diaz/Jason Segal disaster Sex Tape or horror-thriller The Purge: Anarchy. But there is some legitimately brilliant stuff that should go to the top of your rental/purchasing list: 

Snowpiercer is one of the coolest films of the year, thanks to the inventive vision by Korean director Bong Joon-ho (The Host), and the story adapted from French graphic novel Le Transperceneige. It's a sci-fi tale set in the not-too-distant future when a new Ice Age has descended on the planet, and the only human survivors are on a perpetually moving train strictly divided by class. It sounds hard to believe, but it's full of outstanding action sequences, and great performances by the likes of Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris and Octavia Spencer. 



Los Angles Plays Itself might seem like a slog if you just look at the 169-minute running time, but this brilliant documentary is a must-see for movie geeks. It looks at the myriad ways Los Angeles has been portrayed in film through the years, and is constructed from clips of more than 300 movies to tell its story, all of it narrated by director and film historian Thom Anderson. Complications of usage rights kept the 2004 movie from ever getting a wide release, but now those issues have been sorted out and it's finally available on video. 


Pee Wee's Playhouse is the perfect '80s-era TV show to warrant special treatment, and the release today of the entire series on Blu-ray is cause for celebration in my house. If your only memory of Pee Wee Herman is the scandal that nearly killed the career of Pee Wee creator Paul Reubens, or the excellent Tim Burton-helmed Pee Wee feature film, you need to revisit this multiple-Emmy-winning children's show. Equal parts hilarious and trippy, it's something parents looking for some nostalgia can feel good about watching with their kids. And older Pee Wee fans (ahem), can just wallow and watch Captain Carl (Phil Hartman) and Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne) along with Chairy, Conky and Pterri the Pterodactyl.