Friday night was a rewarding but ultimately forgettable show at the Troc with The Shins, Beachwood Sparks, and some horrible band whose name I didn’t bother to remember. (I should probably look into it so as to avoid accidentally seeing them play in the future.)

Saturday night I went with some friends to see Road to Perdition. I gave Sam Mendes top marks for American Beauty, but he doesn’t seem to have much respect for his audience this time around. Subtlety did not exist, so everything was pretty thoroughly predictable, and just in case somebody didn’t understand exactly what was going on, the more important plot points were pounded into our skulls with a hammer. To continue the tool metaphor, the melodrama toward the end was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Less cartoony villains, more Paul Newman, please. (All this might have been a bit more tolerable had someone in the audience not thought it appropriate to bring her 3-year old child to a 10:20 PM screening of an R-rated movie.) It was beautifully shot, however, with a minimal color style that was nearly black and white.

Tonight my friend Jason’s band The Trauma Queens played at the Khyber. Garage, blues, punk, ala The Hives. Loads of energy. Great show.

And finally, this is one of the funniest things I’ve read in the Onion in awhile: Anti-Spam Legislation Opposed By Powerful Penis-Enlargement Lobby