Reviews in bullet points

The Dreamers - An awful, awful movie. It's nowhere near as stylish or poignant as it thinks it is. Laughably pretentious, contrived and self-important. I'd give it zero stars if I could. That said, Eva Green buck ass nekkid. 3 stars.

Little Brother @ Fort Greene Park, Wednesday, July 26 - Short but sweet, fairly enjoyable show. I'm thinking this is the first non-Roots hip hop show I've been to in over a year. Not bad for a free show, not bad at all.
Also:

I didn't realize backpackers still carried backpacks.

Howl's Moving Castle - I could say this for every Hayao Miyazaki movie, but beautiful imagery, lovable cast of supporting characters and great storytelling that falls apart about an hour and twenty minutes in, followed by a long-winded and incomprehensible resolution. 3.25 stars.

Bloc Party @ McCarren Park Pool, Saturday, July 29 - I don't care what the commenters on Brooklyn Vegan say, they're (mostly) assholes. Bloc Party is a fantastic live act. And I really, really like McCarren as a concert venue. Decent sightlines despite the size, good sound. Still, BP's second album can't come out soon enough - as much as I like Silent Alarm, I've basically heard the same setlist three times. I'm just glad I didn't need beer or was in a rush to get out.

DJ Shadow - The Outsider - This is the one DJ Shadow album that most DJ Shadow fans will hate, I imagine. I won't go into too much detail, this being a bulletpoint review and all, and Weiss covered it last week, but I will give you this chat transcript:

spinachdip: "I gotta say though, I am not digging Shadow's new material at all"
iason: "havent heard it"
i: "i do trust your musical taste though"
i: "so im kinda skeptical now since you said it"
s: "I set trends, motherfucker"
s: "You should give it a listen though"
s: "it's really, really different"
i: "im kinda scared"
i: "like the jump RJD2 made from Dead Ringer to Since We Last Spoke?"
i: "cause that caught me off guard"
s: "this one's drastic"
s: "it's nothing like Endtroducing..."
i: "oh no"
s: "I can send it to you"
i: "no no no no non on onon onono"
s: "it's that bay area hyphy shit"
i: "not that shit"
i: "does that mean ill be dancing like a fucking moron if i put it on?"

Well, yeah. In Shadow's defense, Phonte from Little Brother has a half decent guest spot and the line, "I gotta stop fucking with these hoes off of MySpace". Indeed.

The Roots - Game Theory
I want to like this a lot. And I do like a couple of tracks on there, and both "Don't Feel Right" and "Long Time" are solid if not spectacular tracks. I don't hate it the way I did The Tipping Point, and considering I don't think I'll ever like another Roots album like I do Illadelph Halflife, I won't complain too loudly.

Milwaukee Bucks sending Jamaal Magloire for Steve Blake, Brian Skinner and Ha Seung-Jin
This is a trade that really helps both teams. Combined with the earlier trade with Toronto, the Bucks essentially traded Magloire for Charlie Villanueva - younger and more athletic, better complement to Andrew Bogut - and TJ Ford for Steve Blake - not as spectacular but more reliable (and remember, no one could stop Jay Williams like Blake, well, except maybe a lamp post). Portland got bigger and only gave up Blake, who had to go because of the logjam at the point guard position anyway. And any time you can get Ha Seung-Jin in the news is worthy of celebration.

The opening paragraph from mimi in NY's latest post
That's some good hate. Oh, and yeah, the rest of the post too. That's why she's New York's favorite blogger/stripper.