This Week's Voice: Rihanna, BlakRoc, Palin's Going Rogue, The Road, the Future of La MaMa, and More

Blakroc. This picture just stays being funny. Photo by Jonah Schwartz

​In this week's Village Voice, Rob Harvilla parses Rated R, the new album from "publicly wounded robo-r&b ice princess" Rihanna, Tom Hull returns with another edition of his Jazz Consumer Guide, Phillip Mlynar chats with the Black Keys and Dame Dash about their new rapper-rich project BlakRoc, and Stewart Voegtlin takes out a hit on the banal faux-metal of Pelican, Baroness, Mastodon, et al.

In Books, Ward Sutton draws an illustrated review of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue.

In Film, J. Hoberman reviews the long dull slog that is The Road, a movie that stands in direct contrast to Richard Linklater's deft and unexpectedly enjoyable Me and Orson Welles. Plus Scott Foundas chronicles Disney's first venture into the world of black princesses with The Princess and the Frog, Melissa Anderson takes a look at Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, and Nick Pinkerton serves up a double shot of Truffaut at IFC and the Allaince Francaise.

In Theater, Michael Feingold reviews recent productions of The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 1, In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play, and The Starry Messenger, while Alexis Soloski contemplates the uncertain future of La MaMa.

Plus Michael Musto interviewing Isabelle Huppert, Free Will Astrology, and more, here.