The Flaming Lips: The Fearless Freaks

The Flaming Lips: The Fearless Freaks is a fascinating documentary following around the band of the documentary's title, who live in a strange but delightfully whimsical world. Although the documentary has concert footage, it seems much more interested in telling the stories of the band members and their various projects, some of which are not music-based.
Like every good documentary, it leaves you wanting more. I found myself wishing someone would make a documentary exploring the relationship between Wayne Coyne and his wife Michelle, who works as a photographer. She is at the periphery of the film, and I found the two of them more interesting than some of the other issues at play in the film. The film also made me want to see the science fiction movie that the band is shown working on (which, I believe, has since come out.) And now I want to explore Coyne's stomping grounds, the Oklahoma City/Norman area, just in the hope of running into him. Because ultimately, the movie made me want to be a member of this band, which is always the danger of falling in love with music like this.
I feel terrible saying this, but much of the film focuses on drug use. This has become such a cliche in rock docs that I found myself wishing, especially for those involved, that this was a different story.
Overall, the film is a fun look at one of the most experimental bands out there today and for fans it's a must-see.

Havana Red

Readers: Spoiler Alert! This review does not reveal the murderer of Havana Red, but it does indicate who it is not.

Havana Red is the first mystery novel in Leonardo Padura's The Four Seasons Series. This novel is about Mario Contre, a detective working through the murder of a young gay man found in women’s clothes in an Havana park. Conte goes through the usual subjects, the victim's family and his one friend, an elderly gay playwright, exploring modern Havana in decline.
So much of a mystery novel is in convincing the audience that the city or other surroundings are rotten to the core. Havana, the major city of Cuba, a country in ruins, is a perfect place for a mystery novel, and Padura wisely uses this to his advantage.
But as someone who is pro-LGBT and interested in Latino Cultural Studies, I found myself disappointed by the depictions of the two gay Latino men in the novel. The victim is aimless and no longer gets along with his father, but is close with his mother and former nurse. The victim’s closest friend is Alberto Marqués, an elderly gay man who once wrote plays. By the time of the novel, he’s living in a large, falling down house. He is a creeper, watching the detective in intimate situations, and encouraging the homophobic things said against him. Throughout the novel, he’s the character that the audience can enjoy disliking and pin for the murder, even though he isn’t. Although there may be truth to these stereotypes, this is still just another novel that relies on old ideas about the gay community, and does little to subvert them.
As for the rest of the novel, it’s just boring. The detective is predictably broken and miserable, and works it out through creative writing. The novel takes a maddening detour near the end to feature a short story the detective writes. Even that short story is boring, and it draws out the conclusion of the novel. This novel needed serious trimming down and a rethinking of its cliches.