I had a fairly busy week with Spectrum Culture. Because of the shifting vagaries of release schedules, I wound up with the rare instance of two new film reviews in one week. First off was my take on a gloomy extra-natural drama about a musician who starts hearing a low tone that no one else can, and the ways in which it drives him crazy (thanks in no small part to a conspiracy-minded brother-in-law). This is the sort of film I always feel a little bad beating up on. It’s so clearly a labor of love for the chief creators involved that calling attention to how blatantly bad it is starts to almost feel mean. I’ll joyously throw a whole sackful of bricks at the latest over-budgeted, spastically edited monstrosity of swirling digital mecha-gnats from Michael Bay and his soulless brethren, but it’s a different matter when it’s a a well-meaning but pretentious bit of amateurish filmmaking made by people who clearly needed every nickel they could find nestled between the cushions of their respective couches. Still, bad is bad. And the movie is bad.

Happily, I had better luck with the second film I review, a documentary about a plan to put build hydroelectric dams on a pair of rivers in the Patagonia region of Chile. There’s a little bit too much of an overtly educational feel to it, and it sometimes tries to encompass a few too many adjoining issues, but the overall effect is strong. Paired with some of the recent documentaries about aggressive corporate attempts to privatize much of the water supply, it’s an excellent, if dismaying, portrait of the ways that parts of our planet that used to be considered part of the public trust are being ruthlessly compromised in the name of making sure that ridiculously wealthy people can reach the level of obscene wealth.

Finally, I reviewed the new album from the band Grass Widow. It’s quite good, but I think I’ve got to take a break from these bands that fall loosely into the hip, retro, gnarly girl group category.