Michael Cera was great as George Michael, the awkward son of Jason Bateman on my old favorite show Arrested Development, and he could be set for a breakthrough as the star of Seth Rogen's new movie Superbad. He was on Letterman the other night and is pretty much what you would expect if you have seen him on AD. He's also got a series of episodic shorts that's pretty amusing. Basically they're 8-11 minute shows following Cera and his friend Clark Duke's attempts to get a TV show script picked up by a network. The first couple are OK, then it gets progressively funnier.

******


Dragonette is the Canadian duo of Martina Sorbara and Dan Kurtz who live in England and make electronic pop/rock. Think some combination of Goldfrapp, Morningwood, and old No Doubt, except like, not bad. I stumbled across the Midnight Juggernauts' remix of "I Get Around" the other day and their debut album Galore is pretty catchy (but not yet available stateside). Martina also provided the vocals on Basement Jaxx's "Take Me Back to Your House" which I first heard and liked last year, but I didn't realize the connection until I read their bio this afternoon. You can find a link for a full album download of Galore right here.

Dragonette / "True Believer"
Dragonette / "I Get Around (Midnight Juggernauts Remix)" (from The Rawking)

*******

Quick review of recent movies...I've been reduced to the blockbusters so far this summer:

• Transformers is funny and fun and great in spite of massive plot holes that even I had a hard time ignoring. Shia Leboeuf is awkward funny and Megan Fox is ridiculously hot, and Starscream is badass.
  
• Live Free or Die Hard is shockingly good for a movie I was expecting to be a tired retread of a good but long-in-the-tooth franchise. I probably liked it even more than Transformers. Justin Long could have swapped places with Shia Leboeuf in Transformers and both movies wouldn't have missed a beat. They've got the market cornered on awkward, baby-faced roles.
• I was expecting even less of Ocean's 13 but it was also entertaining. I don't even remember Ocean's 12 but I probably saw it and felt the same way. My only complaint is that not being a gambler half of the lingo flies over my head, but it really doesn't matter. And it's nice that these movies are keeping Casey Affleck and Scott Caan's respective careers alive.