The quintet of directors behind the movie adaptation of the wildly popular Freakonomics book nearly pulled off an impossible task: converting a book primarily about number crunching into a successful film. While plenty of laughs and stylistic ploys score some points, the result falls short of being consistently absorbing.

The book Freakonomics used amusing intellectual forays to uncover fascinating statistical relationships in a fashion that was actually interesting to the average Joe who knows zilch about economics. The film takes four of these topics and creates a quartet of mini-documentaries, each directed by a different pair or individual. An introduction and series of brief anecdotes narrated by the authors of the book separate these mini-documentaries in an attempt to add some continuity to the film.

With four directing teams there’s bound to be some dramatic differences, leading to some sharply inconsistent results. “A Roshanda by Any Other Name” deals with the impact that a baby’s name has on that baby’s future life prospects. Director Morgan Spurlock flits from chuckling street interviews to witty voiceovers, while seamlessly incorporating an endless array of stylized graphics and animation. This segment is the most entertaining of the film, skillfully translating the humorous writing from the page to the screen, although the rapid stream of stats and figures go in one ear and out the other.

Alex Gibner’s “Pure Corruption” takes a sharp tonal shift in its treatment of corruption in Japanese sumo wrestling. Gibner avoids the mass of figures and focuses on personal elements by including a bevy of long-winded interviews with key figures. While the tale is occasionally engaging, it drags on far too long, with the somber mood and ominous music more yawn-worthy than profound.

In “Its (Not Always) A Wonderful Life” Eugene Jarecki tackles the most controversial aspect of the book, the claim that the legalization of abortion by Roe. V. Wade was the biggest contributor to the massive nationwide drop in crime witnessed in the early 1990’s. While the fascinating material and crisp animation are initially riveting, the segment bizarrely trails off-topic towards a defense of the authors from the firestorm of criticism their claim induced.

Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing conclude with “Can a Ninth Grader be Bribed to Succeed?,” a conventional documentary about an experiment conducted by the University of Chicago that awarded cash to ninth graders in order to improve their grades. Grady and Ewing largely ignore both data and stylized animation in favor of humorous interviews with a pair of students participating in the study. The charisma of the characters keeps the story from stagnating, although like every other segment the directors fail to strike a balance between the humanity and the facts.

The four segments do have their moments, but translating a non-cohesive story heavy on numerical data proves to be too daunting a task for the quintet of directors. Their different approaches all run into problems — some directors resisted the subject matter, and others simply failed from their own cinematic choices. So while the film is occasionally engaging and frequently humorous, reading the book is a far better (and more informative) option.

Grade C+

Pete Yorn’s sixth album in nine years is, fittingly enough, self-titled, implicitly promising to live up to the name on the cover and give us a straightforward look into the songwriter’s inner self. However, straightforward doesn’t always prove to be groundbreaking, and Yorn’s latest album, while naturally enjoyable, is nothing to write home about.

Yorn gathers up the expected handclaps and bluesy pop from his 2009 collaboration with Scarlett Johansson, Break Up, and blends them with his natural folk sensibility in Pete Yorn. Granted, the songwriter always had folk leanings, but the rock influences in this album are unmistakable (especially since it was produced by Frank Black, lead singer of the Pixies). He wails earnestly — fully committing to every note (even the bad ones) — whether it’s over a mellow road-trip ballad like “Paradise Cove” or the more upbeat, guitar-driven opener “Precious Stone.”

Yorn has a gift for taking everyday, pseudo-introspective lyrics and committing to them so seriously that they seem much more profound. In “Precious Stone,” Yorn sings, “We gotta be somewhere at seven/ I know you have a dress to wear/ I found a way to live forever/ I found a place where no one cares.” On another pop record, the simple lyrics might have fallen flat, but Yorn’s warbling voice and bluesy sensibility give it an almost Bruce Springsteen feel.

Other songs, like “Velcro Shoes,” display gritty, unpolished vocals, but the country twang of the guitar makes the rock ballad a perfect accompaniment to a windows-down, radio-blasting road trip. “Sans Fear” is a wonderful ’80s prom throwback (you can almost imagine the Molly Ringwald look-alikes dancing along) and an example of what Muse could accomplish if they slowed down the tempo and ditched the overblown stadium choruses.

Like the album’s title, Yorn’s unadorned black cover seems to be a reflection of the easy sincerity of his music. With his simple melodies and unembellished rock songs, Yorn begs for honesty. However, Pete Yorn fails to make a lasting impact with this album. Perhaps a few lies could have taken him a long way.

-Neelab Nasraty

Every director, no matter how talented, has a signature fixation that makes a film his own. Clint Eastwood likes heavy shadows. Spike Lee likes his actors on dollies. And the prolific Woody Allen likes — himself.

“You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” is no exception. Like Allen’s classics “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan,” the tale about love and (failed) marriage is a reflection of his own neuroses, showcasing the insane obstacle course that men and women put themselves through in search of happiness.

Naomi Watts plays Sally, an art-gallery assistant in a tense marriage with a failing writer (Josh Brolin). She’s also coping with a suicidal-turned-alcoholic mother (Gemma Jones), who supports them financially — between binges, at least — and an oblivious father (Anthony Hopkins) who has married a young escort to stave off mortality.

The characters careen through the plot at full speed, making unbelievable choices that only make sense given Allen’s sheer trust in the world he’s created. Sally falls head-over-heels for her unhappily married boss (Antonio Banderas) as her husband stalks a neighbor (Freida Pinto) and an obviously phony psychic seduces her mother. Allen’s tight screenwriting grounds the fiasco in the real world, however ridiculous and over-the-top it may get. His characteristic handle on irony keeps “Stranger” enjoyable.

It easily could have been depressing. The third act sees some dramatic drops in morale for all the main players. No one gets what they want, and despite shared devotion to falling in love, affairs and marriages sour. It’s typical Allen. Life’s absurdity is exposed, the pathetic go unrewarded and the writer plays the fool.

Since it’s such standard Allen-fare, “Stranger” won’t disappoint the diehards and serves as a good introduction for those foreign to the director’s shtick.

The film’s only downfall is also characteristic: The actors seem vaguely out of place in their roles. Though the cast veterans make a seasoned attempt to move naturally through Allen’s world, there is no disguising their discomfort. The filmmaker makes the characters into facets of his own personality — so that Allen is the only true fit for each role. You know, like the Jewish “Nutty Professor.”

"The Social Network” director David Fincher isn’t exactly known for his true-life collegiate dramas.  The bulk of his directorial experience is centered around violent cult classics like “Se7en,”  “Fight Club” and “Zodiac,” making him an unconventional choice to direct a film about college nerds gallivanting through the halls of Harvard. But despite his resumé, Fincher — armed with writer Aaron Sorkin’s (“A Few Good Men”) caustic screenplay — has crafted a sharp cultural touchstone, our generation’s “Wall Street,” introducing the 1987 premise of “greed is good” to a 21st-century film about the origins of Facebook.

Chronically unpopular antihero Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is both a scathing social outcast and a brilliant programmer. The 19-year-old’s social leprosy and desire for popularity leads him to enlist the help — and money — of best (read: only) friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield).

Together, the two devise Facemash.com, a website that allows peers to rate and compare Harvard girls based on appearance. Facemash generates so much traffic that it crashes Harvard’s servers, drawing the attention of twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (Armie Hammer and Josh Pence) and fellow co-ed Divya Narendra (Max Minghella), who recruit Zuckerberg to help them program a new site called Harvard Connect. Building on their groundwork Zuckerberg creates the blueprints for thefacebook.com — aided by Napster co-founder Sean Parker’s (Justin Timberlake) determination and Saverin’s financial support. From there, the film follows Zuckerberg’s decline, highlighting legal and personal battles that dog the entrepreneur’s footsteps on his way to the top.

Casting Eisenberg — who typically stars as the sweet and graceless romantic in movies like “Adventureland” and “Zombieland” — as hard-ass Zuckerberg seems like a fatal error, but he slides into the role remarkably well. Sorkin’s trademark rapid-fire dialogue throughout this journey arms the self-absorbed Zuckerberg with a biting, sarcastic edge as he steps over (and sometimes on) his co-creators with alarming ease. Throughout the legal proceedings, Eisenberg effortlessly shifts from humor to heartbreak, shooting one-liners (“If you were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook”) while harboring the intense loneliness of a Grade-A asshole.

Similar praise goes to Justin Timberlake, who feels right at home in the over-the-top lifestyle of the Napster founder — and no, the irony of casting a pop star as the first major force behind illegal downloading is not lost on anyone. From the first time the gang meets him in a fancy restaurant, Timberlake’s charm makes it clear just why Zuckerberg fell under his spell.

Real-life Zuckerberg has taken great pains to distance himself from “The Social Network.” The billionaire insists that the film is an intricate fictional tapestry crafted by Sorkin — an unsurprising move considering his poor representation. In what seems like a last-ditch effort to save face, Zuckerberg scheduled an appearance on Oprah last week, where he stated his intent to donate $100 million to the Newark, New Jersey school system.

But for Fincher and Sorkin — who have crafted a film that explores both the dark side of human nature and the humble beginnings of the world’s biggest social network — Zuckerberg’s rantings are nothing more than the calm before the Oscar storm.

After riding on the coattails of releases past for a few years, the prolific Big Papa Smurf of grunge — the one and only Neil Young — is now giving us eight brand new tracks with Le Noise. Produced by Daniel Lanois of U2’s The Joshua Tree and Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind fame, the album is a boiled-down brew of stereotypical Young: a man on a stool, shredding it on a white Gretsch Falcon that saw the sixties trickle into the seventies with him.

The strange and almost mythical aura that surrounds Young is only fueled by the elements that brought about the making of Le Noise: the man only recorded when there was a bad moon rising. The album took four full moons to record at Lanois’ Silver Lake mansion and — according to Young in the Chicago Tribune — Lanois made his Gretsch “sound like God.”

If God can speak, then he must be able to simultaneously sound electrified and unplugged, and heaven must be an echo chamber. Looped over riffage similar to that found in his work with Crazy Horse, Young’s 64-year-old voice describes nakedly autobiographical tales of loss. This year, Young lost both his steel guitarist Ben Keith to a heart attack in his own home, as well as filmmaker Larry Johnson, with whom Young collaborated since they met at Woodstock.

The songwriter also ruminates on the trite theme of love and war in an acoustic track titled — what else — “Love and War.” It’s not exactly new material for Young, who has crafted more enduring political anthems like “Rockin’ In The Free World,” but it proves to be one of the album’s more accessible tracks. The same could be said of feedback-heavy opener “Walk with Me,” a reflection upon regretful choices.

The album isn’t the easiest album to digest in Young’s decade-spanning career — with no one but the man and the electric guitar, the tracks are more atmospheric than melodic. However, the songwriter has crafted an album full of impeccably surreal grooves, showing that the AARP-generation can still own 39 minutes like it’s no one’s business.

— Josephine Nguyen

Staff Writer

"Inception” is a labyrinth of a movie. Dreams become reality, reality morphs into dreams and — no matter how lost you might be — it’s all rather beautiful. But deep within this stylized dream world, just before limbo, there is a peculiar building. Hidden away amongst the snowy mountains lies an imagined fortress, the final roadblock to the film’s cerebral heist. It’s a strange-looking structure, resembling a totalitarian space ship. And it looks far, far too familiar.

That’s right: Christopher Nolan, acclaimed director of “The Dark Knight” and “Memento,” has stolen Geisel.

It’s a coincidence that could be easily attributed to simple architectural admiration, had there not been one more coincidence in store. The film just so happens to star a UCSD grad.

In this summer’s blockbuster smash, Dileep Rao (Muir ’95) plays the chemist Yusuf, an integral part of Leonardo DiCaprio’s team of memory-stealing thieves.

Our very own Dileep proves to be pivotal in this box-office explosion, driving the getaway van, making it rain when he has to pee and joking with his sleeping comrades (all in a dream, of course). For a school full of science devotees, this is no small feat. If you haven’t seen “Inception,” or at least read your friends’ ill-fated analyses of it on Facebook, then you not only live under a rock, but an impossibly large boulder.

Lulling bad guys to troubled sleep isn’t all Dileep has done: The dude has also had critical parts in Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me to Hell” and James Cameron’s Oscar-nominated “Avatar,” giving Rao one hell of a resumé.

To prove to the La Jolla masses that you, too, can star in critically lauded films post-graduation, Dileep spoke at last week’s convocation ceremony, where he addressed the incoming freshmen and assured them that, as his unlikely experience proves, anything is possible.

I caught up with the burgeoning star and he told me about his time here.

“My college experience was one of the unrestrained joy of learning, of irrepressible nerdiness [and] of being a smart person at a smart school,” Dileep said. “I loved it. I thrived in it. I embraced being a dork, I embraced being bright and I think it changed me for the better forever.”

Hailing from Los Angeles, Dileep began his UCSD career as a pre-med student, but quickly found his chosen career path to be creatively stifling. Dileep then stowed away his chemistry textbooks and flocked to the stage.

“There was a part of me that was not being expressed in my journey to become a doctor…There is more of a risk involved [in acting], but at least while I practiced the art and learned the craft there was something very personal about my expression through that,” Dileep said.

Having plunged headfirst into his newfound passion, Dileep’s years as a Triton were far from boring.

“You don’t know it when you’re there because you’re busy doing it, but my college experience was an incredibly dense, fun, surprising experience,” Dileep said. “There was all this stuff about being a doctor and then suddenly all this stuff about acting and theatre and writing and politics. And I was taking all these different classes; I would even crash courses I wasn’t registered in. I would learn so much about the world doing that.”

So yeah — just because he can call Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt colleagues doesn’t mean he isn’t a nerd too. Dileep has earned his UCSD badge of honor. In fact, he’s got one on you that you’ll never beat.

Dileep Rao was a contestant on “Jeopardy,” and he won.

“I guess the nerdiness comes back to haunt me,” Dileep joked. The nerdiness paid off, as the money from his win helped Dileep bridge the gap between grad school at the American Conservatory Theater and his first job.

More importantly, did he get to hang out with Trebek?

“Uh, no.”

While I talk to him, Dileep fulfills the stereotype of an actor on the rise, walking though the streets of the Big Apple as he finishes the run of his first NYC theatre production, “The Awesome Dance.” I have to repeat my questions because, with the taxis and sirens echoing in the background, he can barely hear me.

The past few years have been even more unbelievable for Dileep. He has found himself being interviewed at premieres for the first time, and given more and more opportunities to work with extraordinary people.

“I was in Cannes with Sam. I mean, it was the Cannes Film Festival! Here I am sitting on the greatest red carpet in the world with Sam Raimi. And I’m like, ‘Who could ever see this coming?’” Dileep mused.

He likened going to work on the set of “Inception” to the height of New York baseball glory. Working with actors like DiCaprio, Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard and Ellen Page every day, Dileep thought, “Wow, I’m in the 1927 Yankees. I’m playing short-stop for the greatest team in the world.”

He only has praise for castmates.

“What blows my mind is how talented those people are, how generous they are, how they worked so hard and how good they are at what they do,” Dileep added. “They just want something for nothing. People who get excellence and get respect— you get that kind of acknowledgement because you are better than everyone else.”

So if the cast of “Inception” is a 20th-century sports metaphor, what would that make his experience working on “Avatar?” Apparently, quite the learning experience.

“Working with [James Cameron] was the best,” Dileep said. “He is such an amazing artist and visionary … He is way ahead of his time, always challenging himself … I am proud of having been in his movie and working with him ... There aren’t many people who can do what he can do, and that’s pretty darn rare. When you look at his totality and comprehensive skill set, he is one of the greatest living film directors in the world.”

Dileep doesn’t have anything in the works just yet. He just wrapped up his play, and he’s now shopping around for scripts. After all, with a track record like his, the next project has to be perfect.

So, back to the real question: Is Dileep responsible for Geisel’s newest claim to fame?

“Everyone keeps asking me this — ‘Is it Geisel, is it Geisel, is it Geisel?’” Dileep said. “I think it’s directly influenced, but from different shots and angles, it looks different. But there are definitely shots where it looks like the Geisel Library, no question. So maybe it was one of those fortuitous accidental beauties that wasn’t able to be taken credit for. It just happened.”

The city of Boston is having a moment — a giant, old school Hollywood, ready-for-my-close-up moment. Pay attention.

Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s doesn’t like to produce hits for the purpose of lining their record label’s wallets. After all, their sophomore album was released during a disagreement with Epic Records — a dispute that resulted in two versions of the record: the band’s more complex tracklist, Animal!, and the label’s parred-down version, Not Animal. But now that the band has signed to indie label Mariel Recording Company, they have the opportunity to hone a sound that is all their own — drama free.

Buzzard is a versatile album, filled with the mellow tracks the band is known for, while still exploring louder soundscapes. The songs, varied as their musical style can be, are united under one message that permeates Buzzard’s eccentric track list: Let your freak flag fly.

There are songs like “Earth to Aliens: What Do You Want,” a mournful ballad with a quirky edge that plays like an ode to Bill Nye the Science Guy. It can’t help but speak to the inner nerd in all of us wondering what lies beyond the stars.

Lead singer Richard Edwards goes on to advocate giving our mouths a dose of a different hue with the catchy-as-hell chorus of “Let’s Paint Our Teeth Green,” while the rest of the band throws in some scratchy, Black Keys-style guitar riffs.

There are more odd tracks that suggest the extraordinary: “Tiny Vampire Robot” is a love song to — you guessed it — mechanical bloodsuckers (that don’t sparkle in the sun), “Lunatic, Lunatic, Lunatic,” addresses the woes of a girl who really does paint her teeth green, while a mixture of animals, bluesy tunes and birds in “Claws Off” completes the variety.

The intriguing song titles and cunning lyrics of Buzzard give the album a solid place among the more acoustic Margot pantheon. The amplified guitars and heavier drumming, however, take it to the blurred edge where independent meets mainstream, giving the work a more widespread appeal.

Steven Ellison, an LA-based DJ otherwise known as Flying Lotus, is known for his trippy, experimental electronica — chock-full with an almost overwhelming variety of sounds — whether it appears in dense, complicated LPs like Los Angeles and Cosmogramma, or light instrumental bumps for Adult Swim.

His newest EP, Pattern + Grid World, leans more toward the minimal techno of the latter than his fully realized albums. Lasting only a brief 18 minutes, with each track clocking in at less than three minutes, his latest features spastic flashes of chaos and — unlike his previous release, Cosmogramma — is synth-heavy, instrumental and features rare live instruments.

Pattern + Grid World kicks off with “Clay,” a bizarre track with a galloping drumbeat and an alien synth to create a highly textured sound. “Kill Your Coworkers” incorporates 8-bit into the proceedings while “Jurassic Notion/M Theory” has various clicks, clacks and beeps wandering around aimlessly throughout the song.

The third track, “Pie Face,” tries to be as disorganized as possible, incorporating everything from random beeping to a quick snare-drum roll to stay unpredictable; by the time “Time Vampires” comes along, the laid-back whistling is a welcome breather. With Flying Lotus, the unpredictable is always expected; the more subtle tracks thus prove to be more effective. EP high point “Camera Day” is therefore similarly mellow, featuring long, spiraling synth sounds to put the listener in a trance.

With its quick spasms of sound, it’s apparent that Pattern + Grid World isn’t meant to be an intense new offering to FlyLo fans, but rather, a kind of dessert to the Cosmogramma entree — something that can be enjoyed in brief bursts of creative energy.

Stories about social misfits finding love are hardly revolutionary, but “Jack Goes Boating” manages to captivate through its complex look at couples doing what they can to make their relationships work.

The film, an adaptation of a play by Bob Glaudini, is long-time theater director and actor Philip Seymour Hoffman’s directorial debut. Hoffman, along with talented Broadway actors John Ortiz and Daphne Rubin-Vega, reprises his role from the original play as Jack — a meek, reggae-loving, dreadlocked man whose love life is practically non-existent.

So when his best friend Clyde (Ortiz) and his wife Lucy (Rubin-Vega) set Jack on a blind date with Lucy’s equally shy co-worker Connie (newcomer Amy Ryan), they start an uneasy, socially awkward relationship. Following some troubles of her own, Connie is uncomfortable being very “intimate” with Jack, despite their feelings for each other.

Jack, eager to please Connie, jumps at her mention that she’d like to go boating, and makes plans to go six months in advance, though he doesn’t know how to swim.  Clyde offers to help, teaching Jack how to doggy paddle at the local YMCA. Jack’s path for self-confidence is mirrored by the other occupants of the pool, among them a legless old man, and the shots in these swimming scenes — taking place both above and below the water — stand out as some of the most beautiful of the film.

Hoffman is a subtle director, preferring to use little bits of character development to push the story along instead of long, emotional monologues (save for an over-dramatic climax that feels out of place among the calm tone of the film). And his acting proves effective as well. While shopping for a gift for Connie, Hoffman’s Jack somehow exudes humor without making a sound, proving how effortless his performance is.

In addition, Ortiz is both confident and vulnerable throughout the film. When he confides some of his personal insecurities to Jack, he’s able to make a quick jump from tears to a smile feel believable.

Some aspects, however, don’t work as well. The transition from theater to screen isn’t entirely seamless. The way the climax is staged feels as if it were created for theater, where each actor’s actions are seen consecutively, rather than individually dissected.

Hoffman does take some good advantages out of his new medium. His use of montage and slow motion feels more original than cliché — a good sign from a first-time director. And he should be commended for his editing. With a 90-minute running time, the film moves quickly and keeps each scene and the characters from dragging on for too long. All-in-all, “Jack Goes Boating” doesn’t bring anything entirely groundbreaking to the table, but it is a more than competent debut from a new actor turned director.

About 10 minutes into “You Again,” the beautiful Joanna (Odette Yustman) turns — hair flowing, bathed in golden light, announced by an angel chorus — to face Marni Olson (Kristen Bell), and the premise of the movie becomes crystal clear: High school never ends. Not if you’re Marni, a one-time loser whose arch-nemesis has returned to marry her brother, hoodwink her family and deny their ugly past in one fell swoop.

Ten minutes later, Joanna’s ultra-chic, ultra-successful Aunt Ramona (Sigourney Weaver) turns — hair flowing, bathed in golden light, announced by an angel chorus — to face Marni’s mother Gail (Jamie Lee Curtis) and, in case it wasn’t clear the first time, serves as a reminder that you can never live down who you once were. Not  if you’re Gail, who watches her own high school nemesis rattle off a list of accomplishments that include owning 14 exclusive hotel chains and remaining on Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women list for an 11th consecutive year.

Commence the next 70 minutes, as Marni desperately tries to reveal Joanna’s true colors to her adoring family, and Gail breaks sink drains and gets speeding tickets trying to one-up Ramona. There’s a disastrous impromptu dance-off that ends in a pile of bruises, a cringe-inducing wedding rehearsal speech and plenty of pratfalls: people falling into an ant hole (Marni) and a swimming pool (Ramona), falling out of a treehouse (Will and Joanna), and knocking down half the family in an attempt to outdo the competition with a mid-air leap (Gail).

The comedic timing is well done, and the movie has plenty of funny moments — including every time Marni’s feisty cougar of a Grandmother Bunny (Betty White) hits on men Marni’s age, or when Kristin Chenoweth appears as Georgia King, the extremely tan wedding planner with a Southern drawl and corny dance lessons to match. Curtis and Weaver perfect the frenemy interaction, as they wear fake grins and taunt each other aggressively in a race down the street. Bell’s Marni — though frenzied enough to illegally dig up archives to fulfill her goals — is likable and shows that no matter how circumstances change, something about high school makes old insecurities flare up.

But “You Again” falls flat because director Andy Finkman (She’s the Man) spends 80 minutes showing how deep old wounds can be, then suggests that they’re actually quite shallow since the decade-old scars are healed right before the credits roll. After the film sets up repeated, painful flashbacks of being locked out of homeroom by classmates singing “We Are the Champions,” it’s hard to believe that everything can be fixed in fewer than five minutes. There’s no true cathartic closure.

“You Again” is thin on plot. The most interesting part of the movie is figuring out, detective-style, what Joanna is up to, and once that’s solved, it’s just a few more funny incidents until the inevitable reconciliation as everyone emerges triumphant.

Michael Franti & Spearhead owe the breakthrough of their 16-year career to their infectiously happy 2008 radio hit “Say Hey (I Love You),” and they certainly plan on sticking with the same chipper message on their new album, Sound of Sunshine.

This upbeat title, however, has dark roots. The life-affirming album was written when Franti almost died from an appendix rupture. On his assumed deathbed, the composer poured out 11 songs about love, friendship and the beauty of life. Throw in some recording sessions in Jamaica and legendary producer Sly & Robbie — who worked with Bob Dylan, Santana and No Doubt — and The Sound of Sunshine feels predictably breezy, but not without substance.

Underneath the surface-level cheer are complex sounds that weave through the pulsating grooves of reggae and hip hop with the catchy hooks of  pop-rock. The album boasts variety, as songs range from the U2-esqe arena anthem “I’ll Be Waiting” to the ’70s hard rock homage “The Thing That Helps Me Get Through.” The first single, “Shake It,” which also happens to be one of the album’s best tracks, is a reggae dancehall groove that features the impeccable flow of Jamacian reggae singer Lady Saw.

The lack of a cohesive sound sometimes detracts from the album’s identity, but Franti’s distinctively soulful voice — whether he is throwing down verses or lightly humming melodies — is easily recognizable and helps to unify the album.

It’s hard not to enjoy Franti’s complex, uplifting music. Even if the sonic changes are often distracting and the persistent gaiety unoriginal, the tunes have an undeniable appeal; the biggest ice-queen could be thawed by the burn of Franti’s honest and soulful message.  It’s just too damn happy to ignore.