A group of interstellar outlaws team up to save the galaxy from a villain who seeks ultimate power in this comic book space adventure from Marvel Studios and director James Gunn (Slither, Super). Peter Quill was just a young boy when, devastated by his mother's death, he sprinted out of the hospital and was swept into the stars by Yondu (Michael Rooker), the leader of an eclectic band of space scavengers known as The Ravagers. Twenty-six years later, Quill has adopted the nickname Star Lord (Chris Pratt). He's broken away from The Ravagers in an attempt to track down an ancient orb that is also coveted by the evil Ronan (Lee Pace), who is in league with the dreaded Thanos, and who dispatches his top assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana) to retrieve it from Star Lord. In the process of doing so, Gamora also gets drawn into a fight with furry bounty hunter Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper) and his tree-like, humanoid companion Groot (voice of Vin Diesel). Subsequently thrown into prison, this unlikely quartet quickly makes the acquaintance of fearsome warrior Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), who seeks bitter revenge for the slaughter of his entire family at the hands of Ronan.
Wilco's 11th album, 2015's Star Wars, was a playful and angular set of noisy pop and pop-friendly noise, and it seemed fitting that it literally appeared out of nowhere, with the band sending it out as a free download without any advance warning one July afternoon. Little more than a year later, Wilco has released a follow-up, Schmilco, and in many respects this album is the flip side to Star Wars. Schmilco feels every bit as spontaneous as Star Wars (and much of the material was recorded during the same sessions), but where the earlier album seemed full of the joy of making music, this one is somber and low-key, a set of navel-gazing music even as the tunes confirm that Jeff Tweedy's way with a melody hasn't failed him. Acoustic guitars dominate most of Schmilco's 12 songs, with Tweedy's vocals right up front, sounding introspective and emphatic at once.