NYC Popfest, starting May 19, is back for its fifth year of assuring that spring actually arrives. If, in previous years, you could count the influences of most bands on one hand (or you could cheat a bit and just use the two polka-dot-gloved fingers it takes to count Sarah Records and C86), this year’s acts show a bit more eclecticism.

So behold! Popfest 2011′s Unmissable Five, in no particular order.

Go Sailor: Go Sailor was only around for about a year, in 1996, but in that time, the band managed to record three singles and a self-titled album that still stand as Platonic ideals of indie pop. Many of our readers may have first stumbled on Go Sailor in the hyper-twee 1999 film, But I’m A Cheerleader, where aggressively naive lyrics, sung sweetly by pop goddess Rose Melberg, and shimmying, twitchy music found a color-saturated world to match. The band is playing during a fitful reunion that started last year, so don’t miss what might be your last chance to see these pop pioneers in the flesh. May 20 at Cameo Gallery.

CUFFS: During last year’s Popfest, Boston’s Pants Yell! played its emotional final show. Sort of. Two-thirds of that band (along with a member of Big Troubles and a member of The Reports) is back this year in CUFFS. A little change of direction seems to have agreed with them. CUFFS’ songs dial down Pants Yell!’s frenetic energy by about 300 percent without losing any of the hooky melodies that often made it impossible to get that last act’s songs out of your head. What’s left are irresistible groovy songs that are relaxed but engrossing. May 21 at Santos Party House.

Caucus: If there’s one reason to see Caucus, it’s this: the band is Japanese. I don’t mean everything Japanese is inherently poppy and cute, but that Caucus will probably never be back in New York. The band doesn’t have a label at home and hasn’t put out a record in two years (although a U.S. 7-inch is coming soon). Catch it now, while it’s still making blistering, jump-up-and-down, hugging, laughing music. May 20 at Cameo Gallery.

The Hairs: Brooklyn’s Knight School was a great, shambolic and energetic pioneer on the recent lo-fi scene. One of that band’s founders, Kevin Alvir, has started a new project, with some helpers (including, occasionally, Alex Naidus of Pains Of Being Pure At Heart), that channels his energies in a more poppy direction. Alvir is doing the same stumbly, falling-off-the-note vocals he did in Knight School, but contrasting them with super-tight pop hooks. This is about as good as it gets. May 22 at The Rock Shop.

Balún: In a year of Popfest unusual for its creativity, Puerto Rican transplant Balún stands out. In a video on Popfest’s Facebook, Balún perform for a room full of children as a five-piece, including a xylophone, violin and a person wearing a giant red rubber head that looks like a squeezed stress ball. While the giant rubber man won’t be reappearing, the music, with whispered, echo-y vocals over tinkling outer space-y strings and synths, makes Balún a welcome change of pace. May 21 at Spike Hill.

The Babysitters

Directed by David Ross





Has anyone ever stopped to wonder how those golden boys and girls from high school react to high school movies? From Heathers to Juno, they get short shrift. Even Molly Ringwald’s princess in The Breakfast Club finds happiness with Judd Nelson’s brooding and dangerous bad boy. But as long as high school remains a life requirement, high school movies will continue to be made. That The Babysitters is not a stronger film is too bad, because it happily gives voice to a group of teens who have previously remained unheard: those who coolly pick and choose their morals.



With just a wisp of a plot—senior Shirley (Katherine Waterston) finds herself the madam of a teenage babysitting bordello—writer/director Ross uses his film to paint a picture of ambitious schoolgirls who cheerfully reconcile getting middle-aged dads off in exchange for a tip on top of their usual fees. Shirley, a Type A who spends her downtime on the job scrubbing kitchen floors before spending it on her back, is the kind of adoring, reticent girl who’s catnip to frustrated hottie father Michael (John Leguizamo), trapped with a wife (Cynthia Nixon, not given much to do) who has forsaken booze and drugs for a life of nitpicking and criticizing.



After a quick bite at a diner and a romantic exploration of the rail yard, Michael and Shirley kiss in his SUV—prompting him to give her a suitably large bonus to ease his guilty conscience. Not for long, of course, since Shirley has a crush on him and is more than willing to give it up as often as he’d like. Unable to keep his trap shut about the underage piece of ass he’s snagged, Michael tells his friends, and they all want a little extra somethin’ somethin’ from their babysitters, too. So, initially unwilling to sully what she has with Michael, Shirley enlists her bad-girl friend Melissa (Lauren Birkell) to take a shift—with a finder’s fee for Shirley, of course. And before you can say “Heidi Fleiss,” their uptight friend Brenda is in on the fun, too. But we all know about dirty old men; and even these tough, money-minded girls get a little freaked out when a weekend in the country gets scary after drugs are introduced. Even worse, Brenda and her sister start questioning Shirley’s authority, leading to one of the best high-school-girl hissyfits ever captured on film.



But before visions of Heathers start dancing in your heads, be warned—The Babysitters lacks the comforting Brothers Grimm fairy-tale quality of that quintessential teen movie (or even the Disney fairy-tale quality of Mean Girls). Ross has made his movie far more serious and dark than either of those hit movies; and, to a certain extent, the final product is negatively affected. The audience roots for Shirley and Melissa to succeed; who hasn’t wanted to turn the tables on drooling older men and take advantage of them for a change? And it’s not as if they aren’t being compensated for ignoring the bald patches and growing paunches that most of them carry without an ounce of self-consciousness (except Leguizamo, of course). But these pint-sized Thelma and Louises, who have so successfully subverted the Lolita fetish that so many men have, begin turning on each other.



By undermining the subtle feminism of his movie, Ross ends up undermining the whole thing, culminating in a terrifying parking-lot scene that doesn’t quite make sense. It’s only Waterston’s steely performance and Birkin’s unpredictability that prevents The Babysitters from devolving into a cinematic hand slap. It’s hard to imagine either of these simultaneously cynical and innocent girls unable to accomplish whatever they set out to do in life, shaming the whimsy and coyness of Juno in the process.