I think it’s embarrassing that Hollywood is looking to children’s toys and games for inspiration, but I now think I’d be okay if French cinema followed suit. (Due credit: I discovered this thanks to a Tweet that justified my Twitter account all by its lonesome.) Continue reading It’s not quite the way to say your goodbyes, it’s not quite the way to behave
Pere Ubu was one of those bands I couldn’t quite wrap my head around when I was at the college radio station. This was partially because the station’s music library, my giant encyclopedia of sonic wonders pressed into individual vinyl volumes, wasn’t especially well stocked in efforts by the Cleveland band, especially lacking in those releases that would be considered seminal like The Modern Dance or Dub Housing. But, truth is, I may have been so lacking in background knowledge about the group that they could have been there and I wouldn’t have known to give them a listen. Also, … Continue reading One for Friday: Pere Ubu, “Oh Catherine”
#4 — Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993) In Empire magazine a couple of years ago, Francis Ford Coppola condescendingly asked Steven Spielberg (buffered by the safe distance afforded by an interlocutor) if he was going to ever make a “personal” … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Four
To check my current facility with sentence structure and grammar and junk like that today, you’ll need to look elsewhere. Continue reading Them gasoline boys downtown sure talk gritty
As part of our ongoing consumer service for those who may be considering buying comic books published nearly forty years ago on the basis of entirely outdated promotional boasts found nestled within the pages of mighty Marvel mags, we examine … Continue reading Mighty Marvel Checklist Hyperbole Check: The Incredible Hulk #138
Danny Boyle makes the worst movies that I kinda like. 127 Hours is drawn from the actual experience of Aron Ralston, an outdoors enthusiast who gained fame in 2003 when a solo excursion to Utah’s Bluejohn Canyon went awry, leaving … Continue reading When all the fires are fanned, when we’re shucking our plans, when we’re too weak to stand on our two feet
68. Adult Net, The Honey Tangle Considering the legendary contentiousness of The Fall frontman Mark E. Smith, it’s wonder the college radio top forth isn’t fully stocked with splinter groups from his acclaimed art-punk outfit. But then it’s quality not … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1989, 68 and 67
When I started at the college radio station, the 90FM music library was divided into three sections, each designated by one of the first three letters of the alphabet. The A Stacks were filled with the artists that were best-known to broader audiences. This was where U2 records resided, for example (and this was before the library was purged of its classic rock, so everyone from Aerosmith to ZZ Top helped fill out this area). The B Stacks was where the titans of college radio had their records filed, with the likes of Love and Rockets and The Replacements. Everything … Continue reading One for Friday: The Connells, “Fun & Games”
Sherlock Holmes (Guy Ritchie, 2009). I fully expected that Ritchie’s first real stab at crafting a blockbuster entertainment would be an over-directed mess. Instead, it’s fairly drab, a generic exercise in filling the screen with bigger, louder, grander nonsense at every turn. Of course, it’s still a mess, a clumsy attempt at making the most famous detective in literary history relevant for a modern audience that’s more interested in quipping tomfoolery than feats of logic. Robert Downey, Jr. plays the title role with the sort of chomping fussiness that’s too often the defining characteristic of his acting, and Jude Law … Continue reading Eastwood, Kusama, Ritchie, Roeg, Vallée
Coffee for Two 