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PICKS & PANS |
This week's reviews: 'Kira's Reason,' Common, 'Miracles'
(PEOPLE) -- This week, PEOPLE.COM looks at the film "Kira's Reason," Common's album "Electric Circus" and "Miracles" on ABC.
Go to: Movies | Music | TV
Movie review: 'Kira's Reason'
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Kira (Stine Stengade), a wife and mother, returns home after a stay at a psychiatric hospital. She and her attractive businessman husband (Lars Mikkelsen) at first try to pretend that all is back to normal in this disquieting Danish drama (with English subtitles), but soon the facade starts crumbling. Kira has her reasons for staying crazy.
In most Hollywood films about mental illness, all is resolved happily with the help of a caring psychiatrist. Not so here, making Kira all the more fascinating. Stengade, in her film debut, gives a haunting knockout of a performance.
Bottom line: Intriguing look at a woman on the verge
-- Leah Rozen
Music review: 'Electric Circus'
Common (MCA)
A more apropos title for Common's adventurous fifth album might have been "Eclectic Circus." The alternative rapper (real name: Lonnie Lynn) shows uncommon daring on a 13-song set that stretches from hardcore hip-hop to psychedelic rock to jazzy bebop. Much like the Roots' excellent new album "Phrenology," this disc is much more than just another rap CD. Roots drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson even helped Common create his sprawling soundscape, coproducing and cowriting nine tracks.
Common also gets all-star support from, among others, Mary J. Blige, Prince, Jill Scott and Erykah Badu. The latter, who is Common's girlfriend, inspired the album's first single, "Come Close," one of the most romantic songs ever recorded by a rapper. "Truth is, I can't hide from you/ The pimp in me may have to die with you," he rhymes in a smooth, chilled-out delivery over a spare, bass-heavy beat.
Elsewhere Common experiments with Hendrix-like guitar and trippy atmospherics on the far-out "Electric Wire Hustler Flower." Less successful is his muddling 8 1/2-minute Hendrix tribute "Jimi Was a Rock Star," on which Common, duetting with Badu, makes a forgettable singing debut. Still, you've got to give him credit for taking the risk.
Bottom line: Run away and join this 'Circus'
-- Chuck Arnold
TV review: 'Miracles'
ABC (Mondays, 10 p.m. ET)
There's no satisfying Paul Callan (Skeet Ulrich), who investigates supposed miracles for the Catholic Church. Early in the January 27 premiere of this solemnly spooky series, he complains that he's turning up no evidence of divine activity on earth. Later Paul finds a certifiably miraculous phenomenon and he's still not happy. "Now I'm afraid we're not alone," he says, "and maybe that's not such a good thing."
"Miracles" doesn't look like such a good thing either. No one's asking for fun and games in a supernatural drama, but the tight closeups, half-whispered dialogue, ominous music and weird dreams (whoa, it's raining blood) add up to a mass of pretension. By the end of the opener, when Paul quits his church job and joins a shadowy independent researcher (Angus Macfadyen), we can see through the murk that the devil will be playing a major role on this show. What, God's not scary enough?
Bottom line: Short of miraculous
-- Terry Kelleher
