This week in the Phoenix: Singing robots, stoner aliens, and book squads with blast-freezers

Published Mar 19 2011, 09:09 AM by Ariel Shearer

Looking for a little weekend reading? Here's what made its way into the fishwrap this week.

[theater] Love and Robots
Chris Dahlen's behind-the-scenes look at Tod Machover's Death and the Powers: The Robots' Opera, running this month at the Cutler Majestic. Big ups to MIT's Media Lab for building the bots, and conveniently connecting them to Xbox controllers.

[features] Book Squad 911
As it turns out -- water is a book's archnemesis, and the worst nightmare of the any Boston library is a burst pipe. Luckily for the Athenaeum, they've got the book emergency squad on speed dial.

[film] Deep Thrills
Peter Keough highlights three must-sees in a preview of next week's Boston Underground Film Festival.

[film] Review: Battle: Los Angeles
An alien invasion military thriller in digital/live-action.

[film] Review: Paul
On the other end of the spectrum: In this latest Frost/Pegg flick, a pot-smoking-alien encounter turns to adventure on America's "Extraterrestrial Highway." Where Sean of Dead paid tribute to Romero and Hot Fuzz homaged Dirty Harry, this one's a love letter to vintage Spielberg.

[games] Game Faces
Maddy Myers rounds up her PAX coverage, and luckily everyone gets along. Mostly.

[games] Review: Killzone 3
Quoth reviewer Mitch Krpata: "If you play it while wearing cataract sunglasses and holding a light-up ice-cream cone, Killzone 3 may well be a revolution."

[this just in] Fawkes News
Ariel Shearer unmasks Anonymous's most recent Boston meet-up -- and sounds like there's more where that came from.