Director : John Patrick Kelly
With : Kate Capshaw, Vince Vaughn, Jeremy Davies, Ashley Judd

“Locusts” is an old-school rural melodrama. The debut film by John Patrick Kelly oozes with a steamy sexuality and a bizarre gothic haze that makes it feel like a cross between “Giant” or “Hud” and a Flannery O’Connor story. On a hot sticky summer night in the 1950′s a tall brooding stranger played by Vince Vaugn (Swingers), dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans, thumbs his way into a small Kansas town and ambles, James Dean-like, into a brightly lit bar / kitchenette. After a tough-guy one punch fight with a local, over a feisty townie (Ashley Judd), he is lead by a new friend to see a woman about a job working on a pig ranch.

The woman turns out to be a sultry cigarette-smoking, bourbon-drinking widow (Kate Capshaw) with a reputation for sleeping with her employees. Not surprisingly he gets the job and a bed in the carriage house of her estate. The next day the two are seen eating dinner served by Capshaw’s painfully shy son Flyboy (Jeremy Davies). Flyboy, we learn, is 21 and has spent the last eight years in an institution after finding his father hanging, by his own hand, from a tree in the front yard. As a result he rarely speaks and lives in quiet servitude cooking and cleaning for his mother and her guests.

“Locusts” is a powerful but impossibly bleak midwestern gothic. Jeremy Davies’ performance as the emotionally paralyzed Flyboy rivals DeCaprio’s in “Gilbert Grape,” and Vince Vaugn’s poor man’s James Dean / Paul Newman act is surprisingly good. As the film weaves one gruesome scene into another (from pig castration to genuine emotional angst), an unending sea of secrets begin to surface. This is not a film for the weak of heart, but it is a unanimously powerfully display of acting and writing worthy of a rental on a hot summer’s eve.

Label: Geffen

Between the years of 1985-1988, there was one record that got more play than the Fonz on a Saturday night. A record whose grooves became considerably more worn than imports like The Smiths, The Specials, The Jam and The English Beat … more worn than homegrown favorites like REM, Husker Du, and Camper Van Beethoven.

The Chameleons were a relatively unknown British band whose beautiful records were released on Geffen in the states to an audience smaller than the occupancy of a Brownstone in Brooklyn. Led by gentle flowing rock guitars, and an almost early U2 take on alternative music, The Chameleon’s “Strange Times” is truly a minor masterpiece.

Led by the somewhat dark breathy vocals of singer Mark Burgess, “The Chameleons” were rode parallel to bands like Echo and the Bunnymen, creating solid atmospheric rock melodies that were just far enough away from pop to make them seem inaccessible to popular audiences. “Strange Times” is a beautiful record beginning with one of the best album covers of all time- a surreal painting features characters that might have come from an “Alice In Wonderland” meets Salvador Dali collage. Featuring chilling tracks like “Soul In Isolation,” fragile acoustic numbers like “Tears,” explosive rock anthems like “Mad Jack” and covers of Bowie and The Beatles, “Strange Times” is the record everyone wanted new-wave-punk to yield but forgot to remember.

Label: Slow River / Rykodisc

It’s not often that I get too excited about a fundamentally straight-forward pop-rock record that is upbeat, has nearly painfully catchy melodies, and a real “American” soul (think Toad The Wet Sprocket, Matthew Sweet, Freedy Johnston). But when it happens, it’s a good feeling because I can once again reaffirm how potentially open I can be to commercial music. In a fairer world this record would set the standard for commercial radio, however it’s unlikely that this 25 year old Nashvillian will ever hear himself on anything other than college radio stations.

With his clean polished vocals and precise guitar arrangements, Rouse has strung together a collection of truly catchy songs that also happen to be a slightly more serious collection of songs and thoughts. These are songs that are pure rock-pop, but are also more than just a novel and barely heard afterthought, they come complete with a kicker: lush violin and cello accompaniments.

On “Dressed Up Like Nebraska” you can hear evidence of a genuinely talented young songwriter who crosses his astute ear for pop music with a great knowledge of all the best music that has come before him. Josh Rouse is a name to remember, and one that might help cheer you up after finding another parking ticket on your car!