Diversions
Music: What a Concept
Tommy, can you hear it? The concept album is back.
Decades after the Who pioneered the rock opera, telling a story via songs, 21st-century musicians are reviving the form. Green Day's American Idiot, a 2004 album that's like an anti-war rally set to song, has sold 3.9 million copies. Sufjan Stevens, an indie rocker with a soft folk touch, is dedicating an album to each state: So far, he's visited Michigan , released in '03, and Illinoise , out this summer. His Prairie State tour covers native son/serial killer John Wayne Gacy and the easily rhymable town of Decatur ("emancipator, great debater . . ."). R. Kelly's TP3 has a five-part hip-hopera, "Trapped in the Closet" --as Kelly puts it, "a ghetto Desperate Housewives. " And on September 20, progressive/punk band Coheed and Cambria releases the third of five planned albums chronicling a family caught in the unraveling of the universe: Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV: Volume One . For those who find the sci-fi plot confusing (basically, everyone), lead singer Claudio Sanchez is putting out comic books to explain it all. Why take creative risks? It's a novel way to crack the charts (and airwaves). Coheed's last CD went gold, while Illinoise tops the college radio charts.
DVDs: Do-Right Dad
They don't make 'em like To Kill a Mockingbird ($27) anymore--a thoughtful family film about racism, justice, and a touching father-daughter bond. Extras include a first-rate bio of the incredibly articulate Gregory Peck.
Books: Love and Terror
Why would a nice boy grow up to be a terrorist? Salman Rushdie's book Shalimar the Clown ($26), which took him four years to write, tracks how a Kashmiri love affair gone wrong leads to disaster for many.
Say Buh-Bye To Beelzebub
In the movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose , the exorcising priest is on trial because he took the girl off medication that could have controlled her epilepsy--the likely cause of her speaking in "tongues," shaking, and eating bugs. Spoiler alert: He was found guilty in the movie as well as in the 1978 German trial that inspired the film. And the Roman Catholic Church is in agreement with the court. Six years ago, it reiterated the need to exhaust medical and psychological options before an exorcism. And can a priest do an exorcism partly in English, as in the movie? Absolutely. "The structure of the rite was simplified," says Msgr. Ronny E. Jenkins, an assistant professor at Catholic University of America. But most priests still prefer Latin.
Q & A: Crash Course
A carjacking at gunpoint inspired Paul Haggis to write Crash , the hit film about racial collisions. It's now out on DVD and will be a TV series for FX.
Any line you didn't cross?
Unfortunately, no. As we were writing, I'd ask, "Can we say these things?" We decided as long as it's true [to life], then yes. I felt dirty just being on the set.
Oprah says she had a "Crash" at Hermes.
We realized the word was creeping into the vernacular when I was talking to a woman and she said, "I just got 'Crashed' in the elevator at the Four Seasons."
You filmed some scenes in your house?
We couldn't afford anything else. The good thing is I just had to shower and walk downstairs to work.
This story appears in the September 12, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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