I’m doing it a week early because, since late Sunday night, the album in its entirety has been streaming on the band’s Myspace. And since I’ve already heard half the album from hearing it live, I decided to preempt my January 12th listening experience and do it now. What? I love instant gratification.

From a musical standpoint, you can hear how the band has grown as musicians and producers from their last album. I was never a person who made a bold “Vampire Weekend = 21st century Paul Simon Graceland rip-off” because I thought that was an easy comparison, and one that’s not fully true. Knowing this criticism, the band shows the haters that they’re not a one trick pony, and they explore new sounds and styles. Do I hear auto tune and dancehall on this album? Yes, I think I do.

With so many groups (MGMT, I’m looking at you), I fear a sophomore slump, but that pejorative thought never crossed my mind with this album. I didn’t fear it because I didn’t think it was possible, and really, because I didn’t want to imagine it. But the growth, the maturity, the new really wonderful danceable songs really leads me to believe in this frigid depth of hell winter that I am going to have a ridiculously fun summer. It’s nice having something to warm up a 20 degree day, even if it’s streaming a new Vampire Weekend album while sitting under a down comforter and drinking a hot drink.

Case in point, last night as I settled in to watch the latest riveting installment of Keeping Up With The Kardashians (more on them another day, like when Khloe’s most recent pregnancy rumors get confirmed or denied), after my millionth viewing of Dumb and Dumber, I caught a few minutes of a Jonas Brothers special on E!

Alright. As much as I like accumulating new music, as much as I can debate with Pitchfork’s Best of Decade list because I am familiar with the artists mentioned and have seen many in concert, I do own a Jonas Brothers CD. I see they’re charming, and while they’re not Hanson, they seem to have the Disney formula down. Or so I thought.

In 2008, I couldn’t escape from the Jonas Brothers. Everywhere I turned, even my dreams, I saw their cherubic faces. This over-saturation, I claim, is what led me to buy their physical CD. And it’s pretty good. I can’t deny that these kids do have talent. But in the past year, is it just me, or have the Jonas Brothers taken a hit on the public radar?

Being good Disney mega-earners, they’ve still been everywhere (thankfully, no longer my dreams). They’ve had a new album released, they have a Disney Channel show, they still sold out a tour, they still appear on the covers of all the teenie rags. Hell, one of them even got married! But somehow I feel that maybe in the slightest way, the Jonas Brothers craze is dying down. I’ll admit, I’m more detached from this than at any other point of their career. In all honesty, I don’t listen to Top40 radio, and if a band isn’t generating coverage on The Music Blogs, I’m really not aware of what they’re doing. Unless it’s something scandalous to warrant press coverage, or unless they are mega-stars and their names are inescapable (thank you, Lady GaGa).

One day, I decided to hide my age and attend one of the last filmings of MTV’s It’s On With Alexa Chung with a good friend on her birthday. We quickly learned that everyone else who was there was there to enter a raffle to win passes to see Nick Jonas the following week. He’s releasing a solo project next week. The girls quickly assured me that the Jonas Brothers aren’t breaking up, but that Nick is just flexing his creative muscles. Flexing his creative muscles? Ok then. I don’t care how quickly he went into the studio to throw this together, knowing that a bevy of teenage girls will buy it solely for having his name and image affixed to the cover. Not that that’s what’s even going on here. Nick Jonas seems to be a consummate musician, despite being 16 years old and in what many consider to be a teeny bopper band. He seems to be the Jonas most interested in the art of making music, I’m sure this album took time and dedication.

I digress. With a hiatus of the Jonas Brothers – no matter whether its official or merely imagined – the brothers have had big things happen to them this winter. Big things that will take some time away from the band. Will the fans move on? Have they moved on? I feel that there’s been a decline in “care” amongst the tween set in a year’s time — is that attributed to Justin Bieber?

The E! special posited the JoBro as on top of the world, and that in the next year, they’ll only get bigger. I think they’ve gotten as big as possible, given the fickle nature of their demographic, and the simple fact: what can they do in 2010 that’s bigger?

Until the middle of January, the films on my list include Sherlock Holmes and Nine. But in January, I’m most looking forward to see Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones.

When I was in high school, I refused to read the book. In all honesty, and as a former English major, it pains me not only to use this (true) cliche but that it’s also the honest truth, I judged the book by its cover. I saw it’s girly turquoise cover that’s sitting on my bookshelf, and heard it was a “sweet” story about a teenage girl, and my mind raced to Nicholas Sparks. I wasn’t in the mood to read another one of those tales of unrequited love gone horribly awry.

My feelings of The Lovely Bones lingered to this year, when I heard that Peter Jackson directed the cinematic adaptation. “That fat hobbit guy?” I thought. “What the hell would he want to touch that with a ten foot pole for?” And then I saw the trailer. It was nothing that I had in mind – and the trailer is immaculate. As a virgin to the story, I’m immediately curious to see how the story plays out and how the mystery develops and ultimately is solved. I know I’ll be in a theater filled with people who have read and loved this story, and I will be reacting in a way that someone going in blind will, and I’m excited for that. But more importantly, I’m curious to see how the master of all things fantastical directs a story that did have a pretty shiny teal cover. There are no hobbits or elves here, but real life heartbreak, pain and loss; this story, despite it’s purgatory like element has real human feelings of heartbreak and pain.

I do want to read the book now, although, I’m in one of those situations: do I go into the film with a clean slate and read the book later, or do I pick up my copy now?

I started to get into James Cameron as a director when I studied film in college, and then, I must admit, Entourage helped me onto a pro-Cameron course. But what got me back into the theater to see a pushing-three hours James Cameron film, aside from the word of mouth, was a profile of James Cameron and the making of Avatar in an October issue of The New Yorker. After reading that piece I knew I was going to love this film.

See it because you want to keep up in water cooler conversation. See it because you want to see ground breaking cinematography (and please see it in 3D). See it because you deeply care about the allegorical messages in the film. Just see it. It was beautiful, and moving, and flawless. And it didn’t feel like it was 2 hrs and 45 minutes, which to me, is the hallmark of a quality film. I was riveted and spellbound, and I shed tears enough to compensate for the desert-like qualities I brought with me to a Titanic screening room twelve years ago.

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In 2000 when Zoe Saldana appeared in Center Stage, admittedly one of my favorite guilty pleasure fun movies, but certainly not a cinematic masterpiece or hallmark of quality acting, I didn’t think anything of her acting abilities. I certainly didn’t expect to see her by decade’s end as one of my generation’s best actresses, and I definitely did not expect for her to be a leading lady in the “see it in IMAX 3D” action movies she’s made her own this year.

Michelle Rodriguez is someone who surprised me in this role. I think she’s a very capable actress, but am not a big fan of the genre of films she typically performs in. And I hated her character of Ana Lucia on LOST. But I thought she was perfect in Avatar, and can’t imagine any other actress in that role.

Giovanni Ribisi, on the other hand, seemed sort of miscast in his role. I can’t imagine him as a man in charge, and for some reason I always see him in sort of an idiot role, and it’s weird seeing him as an “adult.”