Erik Heels has updated his list of albums receiving 5 stars from Rolling Stone. (I talked about this over a year ago). It's not getting any better for Rolling Stone. Erik is mad that Rolling Stone doesn't do a better job promoting their 5 star album reviews (with links to buy the album or with announcements that another album has reached the plateau), and I'm mad that Rolling Stone only gives reissued albums 5 stars. Sure, they don't want to give out 5 star reviews all the time, but if the only way you get one is to reissue a 10+ year old album or be in U2, that's a bad scene. For shame, Rolling Stone.

2009-04-09 – Radiohead – OK Computer (Collector's Edition)
2009-06-01 – The Who – The Who Sell Out (Deluxe Edition)
2009-06-09 – The Rolling Stones – Tattoo You (Remastered Edition)
2009-08-24 – Woody Guthrie – My Dusty Road
2009-09-08 – The Beatles – The Beatles: Stereo Box Set
2009-11-03 – The Rolling Stones – Get Yer Ya-Yas Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert 40th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set
2010-01-27 – U2 – No Line On The Horizon
2010-01-27 – Various Artists – The Best of Chess Records
2010-01-27 – R.E.M. – Murmur – Deluxe Edition

The Stranger's review of Crank 2 is hilariously written as a somewhat real-time description of the action in the movie and I don't know if this was the point or not, but I'll still probably check out the movie on DVD. Thanks, Jon.

When my dad visits, he can always be counted on to leave behind some hyper-masculine paperback trash (what's the counterpart of chick-lit, will "dude-lit" work?). The Reacher series can be summed up as the continuing adventures of an unbelievable bad-ass who goes around doing bad-ass things for, essentially, the sake of pure bad-assery. The writing isn't spectacular, and the plots aren't realistic, but there are worse ways to spend a few hours.