Now that the Academy has weighed in on the top achievements in the cinema for the 2019 calendar — with some suspect choices, I’d say — it’s time for me to do the same. As I usually do, I’ll tick … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2019 — An Introduction
“Congratulations to those men,” Issa Rae said pointedly and gracefully this morning, immediately after listing the five contenders in the directing category for this year’s Academy Awards. The annual announcement of new nominations is always going to be a hash … Continue reading Women Belittled — Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations
584. The Cure, The Walk (1983) The Cure were on the verge of collapse in 1983, and that’s naturally when they enjoyed their most commercially successful year to that point. Bassist Simon Gallup left the band in late 1982, prompting … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #584 to #581
Lived in Bars by Helena Fitzgerald Writing for Good Beer Hunting, Helena Fitzgerald offers this absolutely marvelous appraisal of bar culture with a bracing honesty about the complicated intermingling of reasonable social norms and a potential problematic developed reliance on … Continue reading Outside Reading — But You Can’t Stay Here edition
In my time as a student leader in college radio, I loved the breaks. As stewards of the public airwaves, we felt an obligation to keep our humble broadcast outlet running, even when the rest of the university shut down. … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Celeste, “Stop This Flame”
Born in Sydney, Australia, Bruce Beresford launched his film career far from home. Though he’d made a few short films while attending university, Beresford found paying work in the entertainment industry hard to come by when he graduated in the … Continue reading Actors’ Director — Bruce Beresford
Robert Altman was considered to be one of the best friends an actor could have. In addition to stacking his casts with craft, unorthodox players, he was known for his generosity with the assembled thespians, giving them room to explore and build characters. Especially after his Player-fueled resurgence in the early nineteen-nineties, actors flocked to him. Tthe posters for his films — whether the finished product was great or dismal — roughly equivalent to stream-of-consciousness lists generated by someone who’d been prompted to name every interesting actor they could think of in thirty seconds. Despite all that, Altman never directed … Continue reading Actors’ Director — An Introduction
Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria, 2019). Based on a New York article, Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers is like Magic Mike with a low-level heist drama applied like glittery eye shadow. A group of exotic dancers at a high-end New York club need to … Continue reading Then Playing — Hustlers; The Lighthouse; Shazam!
These posts are about the songs that just barely failed to cross the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41. Beginning in 1987, the Scottish pop group Wet Wet Wet had a string of hits on the U.K. charts, while causing barely a ripple in the U.S. Each of their first ten singles landed in the U.K. Top 40, only one of which — their debut, “Wishing I Was Lucky” — appeared on the Billboard Hot 100. And that song peaked at a lackluster #58. If there … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Love Is All Around”
588. Nina Hagen, Fearless (1983) Released in her homeland as Angstlos, the fourth album by German wildling Nina Hagen delivered a notable shift in sonic style. A compatriot of the Sex Pistols, Hagen had previously leaned into offbeat art rock, … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #588 to #585
Coffee for Two 