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Depeche Mode: Between the absurd-in-hindsight “riot” at the Beverly Center in 1990 and last month’s free concert on Hollywood Boulevard, the English synth-pop band has been L.A.’s house band of sorts for going on two decades. Now they’re back with a new record and two nights at the Bowl this summer, but the real surprise is how good they still sound after so many years. Guitar bands may age, but electronics are forever.

Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Solaris’: We’re risking the wrath of devotees of Tarkovsky’s 1972 original, but the key to Soderbergh’s 2002 version is not simply thinking of it as a remake. It’s more an exploration of loss under Soderbergh’s cool direction; George Clooney and Natascha McElhone offer an ambiguously creepy take on love and regret; and Cliff Martinez’s icy electronic score sends the film into an orbit all its own.

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Andy Milonakis’ ‘Let Me Twitter Dat’: We’ve mentioned our ambivalence toward Twitter in this space before, but somehow this comic found something even more annoying -- poorly done musical satire in its honor. Not that we expected some Noel Coward-level wit from a “Man Show” veteran, but somehow this song made us yearn for the intellectually stimulating songcraft of “Weird” Al Yankovic.

‘Star Trek’ -- again: Wow, so we’re still talking “in Klingon” (yuk yuk) about Kirk, Spock and McCoy. What, we didn’t get enough “Star Trek” from the 10 movies or six TV series that preceded J.J. Abrams’ prequel that opened this weekend? Let the sci-fi completists have at it -- the rest of us will patiently await the film version of “Battlestar Galactica.” With origins in the ‘70s instead of the ‘60s, it’s slightly fresher geek fare.